


Up and up on a Wild Moonbeam

by Emelye



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: LGBTQIAP+ Snape Month, M/M, Severus Snape Lives, Snape Appreciation Month, Snape Lives Week
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-09 01:23:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12266055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emelye/pseuds/Emelye
Summary: Severus survived to finally have all the peace, quiet and freedom he always dreamed of. Thankfully, it didn't last.





	1. Lazarus

Severus Snape dreamed very small.

For eighteen long years, it was the promise of his time being his own to read or research or experiment, and to have enough money to purchase a bottle of wine, a frozen meal from Tescos, and to never have to discreetly count his coins when buying supplies in Slug and Jiggers again.

He dreamed of solitude when his duties surrounded him with the trappings of children. When he was trapped in endless staff meetings. When he was forced to socialize with Death Eaters at macabre soirees. He would escape into the night air and imagine just walking away, free as anyone to just go home.

After finding himself alive in the Hogwarts infirmary when he expected to be dead, he was finally free to do exactly that.

But he waited, because it had been the habit of a lifetime to be pressed into service by his betters and those to whom he owed debts. But Albus was not there to demand an accounting of his time and actions. The ministry appeared supremely unconcerned with his continued existence. Horace and Minerva seemed to have made him quite redundant at Hogwarts. 

There was nothing and no one for him to give account to, and so, when Poppy demanded to know what on earth he was still doing there, he drew himself up with all the courage he could pretend, and walked away.

He walked past the gates of Hogwarts, down the streets of Hogsmeade, and farther still, long past the standard apparition points. He walked the narrow country road for miles until his feet burned and sweat ran down his back but he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop walking, afraid that somehow, somewhere, a mistake had been made and someone would be sent to fetch him back.

No one came.

Night fell, and in the cool dark of a Scottish meadow, he allowed himself to breathe.

He apparated home.

 

Severus relished his first trip to Tescos. He delighted in selecting equipment from the potioneers catalogs. He took pleasure in finally making a series of small improvements to his home. On cool sunlit mornings he researched and wrote and brewed. On rainy, dark afternoons, he sipped tea or wine and read books by the fire. On warm, windy afternoons he walked into town and did his shopping with no fear he’d be unable to afford the things he wanted.

It was everything he wanted. It was peace and freedom and security at long last.

At night, after he’d had a long day in the lab, he would smile to himself. Albus would have been pleased for him, he thought, though Severus quite missed sharing a cup of tea and his discoveries with the old man, if only for a soul to bear witness to his life’s creative endeavors. To feel, only briefly, that he was more than the sum of his many failings.

As the days passed he thought of others. Lily, of course, but missing her was almost reflexive anymore. It was the odd thought as he trimmed the verge that he would have liked to have seen how Pomona was getting on with the crossbreeds they’d discussed developing. He thought of Minerva as he turned on the wireless, recollecting her insistence on keeping the staffroom tuned to whatever quidditch match was playing.

He didn’t give a toss about quidditch but he found himself turning the dial to the matches to hear the familiar and comforting voices of the announcers when the house seemed too quiet.

He thought of the Malfoys. He thought of evenings down the pub with Lucius as they ranted and complained about the state of education at Hogwarts. No blood prejudice, no officious snobbery, just honest indignation and drink-fueled attempts to set the world to rights. However much he’d loved Albus, as a headmaster he’d made a great general. 

He thought of his children. Many had done very well for themselves, a few had covered themselves in glory and a few were now dead or in prison or lucky to be alive and free. He was thankful the number was not more.

He thought of Potter.

It was inevitable, he supposed. The young man had been the lynchpin of his existence for so long he was bound to pop up in his thoughts from time to time. And if he was being honest, he supposed he thought Potter might have sought him out before now. Either to make amends or settle scores or perhaps some amalgamation of the two. He had no desire for either, personally, but he would have expected it of him, fraught as their relationship had always been.

Finally, Severus resolved that while solitude was still his preferred state, it might behoove him to seek out company from time to time. With this end in mind, he owled Lucius to see if he’d be free for drinks in the coming week.

He was not. “Sorry, chap, as you probably read in the papers,” he didn’t, “I’m rather busy with our old passion project at the moment. I must admit I never thought to find an ally in Potter, but he’s a surprisingly pragmatic individual. All down to your good influence, I’m sure. Rather preoccupied with Gryffindor notions of fair play, I’ll admit, but one can’t have everything. Cissy sends her love. Lucius.”

The sinking feeling in his stomach was entirely the result of not having eaten yet that day.

There was a pile of unopened Prophets near the kitchen window that he couldn’t be arsed to open while he’d been researching. He tore through them now, looking for some portent of this unholy bargain.

Potter and Lucius shaking hands outside the ministry. Potter and Lucius touring Hogwarts. Potter and Lucius apparently sharing a chummy laugh over a pint in the Leaky Cauldron. Of course the Prophet credited it to Potter’s forgiving nature and a mutual interest in education reform. A new curriculum for muggleborn and muggle-raised students to introduce them to the wizarding world. A revised muggle studies curriculum. Funds for students in need. New equipment for all house quidditch teams. 

Severus snorted at that. But that wasn’t all. The young man apparently fancied himself Daddy bloody Warbucks. He was petitioning the ministry to reform their child welfare laws as well. And Lucius was involved there too, matching Potter’s donations, because it wasn’t enough to steal the dramatic reconciliation he’d bloody well _earned_ after keeping that little bastard alive for the seven longest years of his life, oh no! He had to show him up financially too, the son-of-a-bitch.

Cissy was probably beside herself with joy, though he had to wonder how Draco was taking all of this.

He’d only just turned on the lamps in the house when a knock came at the door. Wand discretely out, he unlatched the chain.

He was only slightly disappointed to see it was Minerva. 

He invited her in, poured her a drink and made an attempt at inscrutability.

“How are you, Severus?”

“Quite well, Minerva. And yourself?”

She took a sip of her glass and smiled sadly. “It’ll be a difficult year, and no mistake. You’ve heard what Potter has been up to, I’m sure?”

He raised an eyebrow in acknowledgement.

“I suppose he was rather at loose ends after the war. First helping to rebuild the castle. Now this. I can’t help wondering how he’ll cope once he returns in September. Without a war on, he might give Miss Granger a run for her money.”

Severus disguised his shock. “Is he returning to finish his schooling? I thought I understood he was planning to train as an Auror.”

Minerva smirked. “Not just yet. I think when all is said and done, he might find he’s had his fill of chasing dark wizards.”

“I see.”

“As it happens, I’m in need of a defense master. Albus seems to think the curse on the position is quite broken now. I don’t suppose you’ve any interest?”

Severus quelled under that knowing look. She knew him far better than was comforting.

“I’ve been quite busy with research, you know.”

She hummed noncommittally into her glass. “I’m not Albus, you realize. I’ve some notion of the value of a galleon and I hardly expect my staff to work for the reward of shaping young minds.”

Severus couldn’t quite hold back a laugh. “Am I to resume duties as Head of House?”

“Would you like to?”

“If the alternative is Horace, I should think so. Without the necessity of preparing ingredients for classes or my duties for the Order I expect it would be a doddle.”

Minerva raised her glass to that.

A while later, after he’d shown her out, he considered how briefly he’d attained his heart’s desire. He glanced between the full icebox, the tidy home, the cauldron simmering softly away with hundreds of galleons worth of top-of-the-line weeds and entrails. And in barely two weeks he’d be returning to a castle full of cheeky adolescents, breaking up duels in the common room, preventing hormonal children from making more people in empty classrooms and broom cupboards, and reversing the spell damage of overconfident idiots.

“Thank god,” he sighed, putting out the lights, and going to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title taken from the song "Lazarus" by David Bowie.


	2. Heal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Six weeks later, Harry bustled around Snape’s bedside, as he levitated the man, changing out the sheets and turning him to prevent bedsores. Snape had proved to be an invaluable conversation partner whilst he’d been unconscious and he’d come to several important decisions about his future with the aid of his sounding board.

Breathing inside Hogwarts’ corridors in the aftermath of battle was unpleasant. The air was thick with stone dust and smoke, and the scents of scorched wood, spellfire and death lingered. The rubble crunched beneath his boots as Harry walked the halls. The great hall was nowhere he wanted to be at the moment, leaving it to the dead, injured and grieving. 

“Potter! Thank Merlin! Come quickly, there’s something you need to see.”

Minerva McGonagall swept out of the great hall, and gestured for Harry to come, taking him by the elbow when he was within her grasp. Her grip was as strong and bony as ever it had been when he’d been a first year, and it was a momentary comfort.

A stretcher was laid in the far corner of the dais with Poppy Pomfrey giving orders to the Aurors and Mediwizards like the war-time medic she was. Amidst the activity it took Harry a full minute to understand what he was seeing.

“Holy sh—”

“Yes, Potter, Severus is alive, barely. If you’ve anything to say to him, now might be your last chance. Make your peace, and quickly.”

Harry twisted his hands in his shirt beside the dais as he waited for Madam Pomfrey’s word. After what seemed like an endless array of potions and spells were applied to the still body of his professor, Harry was gestured forward. The others stepped aside silently and Harry, trembling, knelt beside Snape.

“Professor, I don’t know if you can hear me right now.” Miraculously, Snape’s eyelids fluttered with acknowledgment. A gurgling sound came from his throat and Harry shook his head. “Don’t—don’t try to speak, Professor. It’s all right,” he told him. With very little conscious deliberation he took his erstwhile professor’s hand in his. “It’s over now. I got the message you needed to give me. Voldemort is dead. We beat him.”

Snape’s eyes closed again, apparently exhausted by the effort expended in acknowledging Harry, and as if on cue, Madam Pomfrey told him, “That’s enough, Potter. I’ll be taking him to the hospital wing now.”

“Will he make it?”

Her stern expression softened somewhat. “If he survives the night, it’s a possibility.”

Harry looked across the rows of bodies and weeping families. With Harry and Ron’s quiet understanding, Hermione had left almost immediately to retrieve her parents and restore their memories. Molly and Arthur had taken Fred back to the Burrow for laying out, and Ron had returned with his family. Molly would have welcomed him, he thought, but it seemed important that he give Ron time to grieve his brother. 

None of that helped the fact that Harry felt about as useful as a wax cauldron.

He followed Snape’s stretcher to the hospital wing, taking note of the parts of the castle still standing and those that had failed so completely the sky was visible where seven upper floors ought to have been. He couldn’t help looking at the devastation of Hogwarts as something he took from the Wizarding world, however inevitable his confrontation with Voldemort might have been, and the urge to put it right was as compelling as any instinct to hide a broken dish from his Aunt Petunia.

The doors of the Hospital Wing swung wide as they approached and Snape was transferred to a cot, privacy screens in place.

“Potter, are you still here?” Madam Pomfrey observed.

Harry nodded. “I’d like to help.”

Madam Pomfrey huffed. “Very well. Severus will need blood replenishing potion every hour until the venom works it’s way through his system. He’ll receive a dose of antivenom every three hours. He can have something for his pain every four hours. Healer Thistlewick put Muggle stitches in and they’ll need checking every day for infection. If he becomes feverish or the wound looks red or inflamed, let me know and I’ll take care of it.”

Harry goggled. “Are you sure I ought to—”

“You said you wanted to help, did you not? How many hands do you think I have, Mr. Potter? There was a war here a few short hours ago, and I have many other patients trying to die at the moment, so if you’ve a vested interest in helping, _go help_!”

Harry scarpered. Ensuring the privacy screen was drawn, he leaned heavily on the stone wall and sunk down to the floor. He stayed there for some time with his head on his knees until his rear was quite numb from the cold and unforgiving stones. 

The bell chimed the hour, it’s tower still miraculously both standing and marking the passage of time. Harry stood, body feeling the effects of his recent trip to a spectral King’s Cross and numerous other offenses. It was past dusk, and he lit his wand to be sure he selected the correct potion. There were so many bottles on the small table beside Snape’s bed. 

“Right then,” muttered to himself, measuring out five drachms and staring at Snape’s immobile form. “Don’t suppose you could sit up for this, could you?” Of course he couldn’t. And besides which, his throat was ripped to shreds. Even if he could get him to swallow it somehow, Harry had the horrible vision of it dribbling right back out the holes in his neck. 

“Madam Pomfrey?” Harry called.

The mediwitch appeared through the curtains. “Yes, Potter, what is it?”

He gestured helplessly between the dropper and the bed. “How should I—”

Understanding crossed her face. “Like this, Potter.” Flicking her wand in a cross like motion before pointing her wand at the measured potion. She intoned, “ _Absorbet_.” Then turning to Snape she pointed at his middle below his rib cage. “ _Absorbet_ ,” she said, before drawing a check mark above his body. “Don’t mix up the wand motions, you’ll be spraying vomit and stomach bile everywhere.” And with that she left. 

Harry stared after her in horror. 

Three-quarters of an hour and a fifth of a bottle of firewhiskey he’d requisitioned from the Room of Requirement later, Harry thought he had the hang of the charm. He’d never much enjoyed the taste of the stuff, but he had to admit when introduced directly to the stomach, he could definitely appreciate its effect. Before the clock could chime once again, he took a healthy slug of sober-up potion and conjured himself a chair that would have made Dumbledore proud. 

Night had fallen now, and the moonlight spilling across his professor’s face really highlighted how truly horrible he looked. Harry frowned. “Just leap out of bed and hex me if you want me to stop at any time.”

Harry began casting gentle cleaning charms over Snape, managing to get most of the blood and grime off his skin. “That’s a bit better.” 

Settling back down in the squashy wing chair, Harry sighed and waited. When the bell tolled Harry once again measured out the blood replenisher, then readied his wand. _Cross_. “ _Absorbet_.” The potion disappeared. He pointed his wand at Snape’s stomach. “ _Absorbet_.” _Check_. Harry patted down the blankets above his professor. Dry. No sign the potion had missed it’s target. Harry pumped his fist and quietly celebrated his talents as a Mediwizard. 

Never having been content to rest on his laurels for long, however, Harry considered the time. He had another hour before Snape would need more potions. With a snort imagining Hermione’s probable reaction, Harry checked that Snape was resting comfortably before leaving to see what might be done about repairing the school.

 

Six weeks later, Harry bustled around Snape’s bedside, as he levitated the man, changing out the sheets and turning him to prevent bedsores. Snape had proved to be an invaluable conversation partner whilst he’d been unconscious and he’d come to several important decisions about his future with the aid of his sounding board. 

Harry cradled Snape’s head in his hand as he lowered him back to the bed, gently smoothing his hair back so as not to pull. “Grimmauld Place finally sold. I thought it was a long-shot taking the deed to the goblins so soon after destroying Gringotts, but business is business, I suppose. Kreacher didn’t even fuss much after I told him he could keep whatever he liked of Regulus’ stuff. Bill took care of everything dangerous. I wasn’t sure what to do with the library so it’s boxed up for you here, whenever you wake up. 

“They offered me a spot with the Aurors, d’you know? I didn’t take it. I mean, being an Auror sounds great and all, but honestly, I’m really tired of chasing dark wizards right now.”

“Potter…”

Harry jumped nearly a foot in the air at the sound of the weak and gravelly voice. “GAH!” 

Snape’s eyes were slowly blinking open. “I can’t move. Why can’t I move?”

Harry moved to the chair at Snape’s bedside, taking a seat and pouring a glass of water from the carafe on the table. Wordlessly, he brought it to Snape’s lips who sipped weakly at the rim of the glass. “Residual nerve damage. There was no way to know how bad until you woke. But I’ve prepared some treatments that should help.”

Snape appeared confused. “You?”

Harry swallowed against the impulse to defend his presence. “I haven't had a lot to do since Voldemort fell. Anyway, there were a lot of wounded. They needed the help and Madam Pomfrey has been instructing me.”

Snape grunted as his head dropped back to the pillow beneath him. “He’s dead?”

“Yes sir.”

Snape sighed, relaxed. “Who else?”

Harry took a deep breath. “Remus. Tonks. Fred.”

Snape nodded, inscrutable.

“Lavender Brown and Colin Creevy as well. He shouldn’t have even been there, but—”

“He worshiped the ground you walked on.”

Harry looked out the windows to compose himself. “Neville would have been a better role model. He fought brilliantly. I just seem to have a knack for blocking Unforgivables with my face.”

Snape began to cough and Harry automatically reached behind him to help prop him up. Reaching for his wand he cast the spell to clear his lungs of fluid. Instantly the coughing stopped.

Madam Pomfrey chose that moment to look in on them. “Severus! Good to see you among the living. Harry,” she addressed him. “Get the nerve regeneration potion, please.” 

Harry obeyed, but caught the gist of their conversation from the other side of the curtain.

“That boy has been a godsend, Severus. I mean it. And I daresay it’s done him good to keep busy.”

“I wasn’t about to cast aspersions, Poppy. He’s obviously done a credible job.”

“Yes, well, do try and remember that when he doses you with the regenerative. I can’t sedate you—”

“—and analgesics interfere with the potion, I remember. Just strap me to the bed.”

Poppy smirked. “Yes, well, Potter wouldn’t hear of it after I strapped the first Cruciatus victim to the bed for treatment. Their families and friends have been holding them through the convulsions. Unsurprisingly, it’s reduced the recovery time in half.”

Snape rolled his eyes. “I’ll pass. It wouldn’t do to add assault on some poor sod to my prodigious list of charges, I’m sure.”

Harry was delighted to interrupt the conversation at that point. “Actually, Kingsley cleared you, Sir. Let you off with a stern warning, I think.”

“Your doing?”

Harry snorted. “My word’s not that good. Your memories cleared you. Speaking of,” Harry paused and removed a vial of silvery memories from his robe pocket. “I can give these back to you now,” he said, placing them carefully on the bedstand.

“They were useful?”

Harry smiled sadly. “They were. And if it’s all the same to you sir, I thought I’d help restrain you. Give you a shot at a well deserved Glasgow kiss.”

The laugh sounded like it was forced out of him from somewhere painful, but he submitted as Harry helped him to sit. The young man sat back against the headboard and gently settled Snape against his front, his head resting against his collarbone and Harry’s arms crossed lightly over Snape’s chest. 

The boy cast a wordless cushioning charm beneath his head. “My nose can handle the abuse,” he explained. “Collarbone not so much, and I’m not interested in another dose of Skele-Gro.”

Snape relaxed minutely. “You’ve done this before?” He felt his nod. “Very well.”

Madam Pomfrey measured out the regenerative in an almost comically large spoon. 

The potion took effect immediately, passing through the mucus membranes of the mouth to affect the nerves directly. 

Snape shuddered and shook in Harry’s arms, jaw clenched against the pain, small huffs of breath and grunts his only audible sign of distress.

“Breathe, Professor. Come on,” Harry coaxed. “Breathe with me.” 

Shakily, Snape began to match his breathing to Harry’s, crying out when the pain was too intense, as Harry watched the clock, wondering how long he could bear the convulsions. The longest he’d ever seen a patient suffer under this treatment had been a few minutes. 

Ten minutes had passed and Harry found himself praying the man would pass out from the pain. He muttered soothing nonsense under his breath, unable to hide his horror. “Shh, Professor, It’s almost over. It’s almost over. You’ll be all right. It’s going to be all right.”

An eternity later the shaking gradually began to slow and Snape’s breaths began to deepen. Harry hoped he’d fall unconscious soon. Knowing every touch was agony to his abused nerves, he slid out from behind Snape and gently lowered him back to the bed before dosing him with twice the normal amount of analgesic potion. 

Madam Pomfrey found him trembling beside Snape’s bed a moment later. 

“It’s always like that with him. Any more nerve damage and he’ll likely be beyond help.”

“Cruciatus?” Harry asked, embarrassed by how small his voice sounded.

Madam Pomfrey nodded. “And poisons. That poor, dear, brave, _idiot_ , of a man. Oh, Harry, come now, shh, there, there.”

Harry was embraced by the old Mediwitch before he’d even realized he’d been crying.

Snape’s suffering was something he’d considered in the abstract at his bedside during the many nights spent watching his prone and pale form for the rise and fall of his chest. But the evidence of the torture, combined with the crippling loneliness and isolation of his memories were too much for him to bear.

Harry had thought over the weeks as he’d cared for Snape that after he woke they might form some sort of friendship.

But here, considering all the man had suffered on his behalf and on behalf of his family, he was confronted by the uncomfortable thought he didn’t remotely deserve this man’s goodwill. What right had he to expect friendship when Snape had spent every year of their acquaintance trying to protect him and Harry had returned him nothing but disdain, hatred and defiance?

Harry shook his head. He didn’t deserve his respect. But he _wanted_ it.

He hadn’t understood then how fortunate he’d been to have friends, mentors, and money that put him on an even keel with the other students. But he understood now. By god, after spending hours in the pensieve with Tom Riddle and Snape, he understood. And Harry knew what he had to do.

It would do no good to tell Snape any of this. But he could show him.

He disengaged from Madam Pomfrey’s embrace. “Thank you. For everything. I have some things I need to do.”

If she was surprised she hid it well. “You’ve been an invaluable help, Mr. Potter. I’ll be happy to write a letter of recommendation should you ever decide to apprentice at St. Mungo’s. What should I tell Severus should he ask after you?”

Harry looked over at the now sleeping man. “He won’t.”

Harry packed his things, said goodbye to the staff, sent owls to Hermione and Ron and left Hogwarts. 

Tomorrow was going to be a busy day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title taken from the song "Heal" by Tom Odell.


	3. I Am the Resurrection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Severus what is the first thing you remember after the battle?”
> 
> This was decidedly an unfamiliar turn to his normal routine physical. “Waking up in the infirmary, having a pile of my clothing shoved at me and being ushered out the door.”
> 
> Poppy inhaled a sharp breath through her teeth. “Bugger. I thought so.”

It was one thing to plan, to fantasize, to dream of returning to a Hogwarts remade. To envision a life for himself unbound by obligations to the ghosts of dead friends, their unruly spawn, a ruthless, bloodless master who would spare nothing or no one to achieve his ends. 

And then there was Voldemort.

There were idle thoughts about extra hours for experimentation, a night down at the pub to unwind after a tiresome week, a more collegial atmosphere in the staff room. Perhaps even friends he wouldn’t have to sacrifice to the cause of one master or another. 

But the reality was, as he stood staring up at the imposing oaken doors of the school, he’d not the faintest notion how to conduct himself without the ever present threat of discovery as a double agent hanging over his head. “Coming in from the cold,” so to speak, was not a task undertaken lightly or without significant risks. His brief reading on the subject was rather stark. Employment was often difficult to find due to the understandable reticence of employers to be associated with those trained in espionage. Some employed their particular skills in the private sector, arranging military coups, overthrowing governments, and creating general mayhem for pay. Thankfully, Minerva McGonagall was not in the least intimidated by his past and he wouldn’t be forced to make his living exploiting banana republics for his foreseeable future. 

There simply wasn’t a well trodden path forward for him. He would be forced to make his own way, on his own terms, which was as liberating as it was terrifying. His persona, the black robes, the long, lank hair, the lack of attention to his grooming, his abrasive personality, all were cultivated as a student to keep people at a distance, and its usefulness continued well into his adulthood. 

But if he was to truly make a fresh start, how was he to do it without shedding some of his familiar armor? After so many years, where would he even begin?

As it happens, the choice was taken from him by the arrival of Madam Pomfrey. 

“Severus! Finally! I need to see you in the infirmary once you’ve settled your things in your quarters.”

He restrained the roll of his eyes, just barely. “As you wish, Poppy.”

“Don’t start with me Severus. You’re damned lucky you aren’t dead right now. The least you can do is let me examine you to make sure your treatment had no lasting effects.”

Severus paused. “Treatment?”

Poppy’s eyes took on that characteristic frozen quality he saw when she was unpleasantly surprised but doing her utmost to conceal it for the sake of the patient. “I think it’s best we discuss this further in my office.”

Severus was deeply concerned now. He nodded to her and began the descent to the dungeon out of habit before realizing he’d no bloody idea where his quarters were even located. A quick detour to Minerva’s office later, he found himself in the Serpentine corridor outside the defense classroom. After resetting the wards on the classroom, he stepped inside and made for the staircase to his new office. While not as large as his previous office, he hardly minded. The numerous shelves of preserved potion ingredients, often attributed by his students to his love of dead and pickled things, were a holdover from a potions master that preceded Slughorn by several decades. He had no desire to relocate them from their home in the potions classroom where they undoubtedly served some sort of educational purpose before the turn of the previous century. The door to the left of the bookshelf on the far right wall of the office led to his personal quarters. He tapped it thrice with his wand, intoned his name and his new password, and the door creaked open into his living area. 

Minerva had sought to prepare him for a slightly less spartan existence. “You’ve served this school admirably. You may find it has rewarded you in kind.”

This, however, looked less like a bachelor’s bedsit and more like a bloody Turkish bath.

“Now this is _really_ too much,” he opined. The carpets were admittedly lovely and the mahogany shelving, more than sufficient to house his library, could stay. He supposed the sumptuous cognac-colored leather chesterfield and club chairs did fit the overall ambiance placed just so before the fire, but the gilt cornices and elaborate tapestries were quite the limit. He did have a fondness for the green velvet hangings around his bed, though. And the bath was something a boy in a two up two down in the shabby end of Cokeworth could only have dreamt of. It was a frivolous thought, but he had half a mind to brew up some bath oil for his personal use. The thought was as spontaneous as he found it hopeful. Perhaps he honestly could find some kind of life for himself outside of the cycle of mourning, penance and suffering.

He called for an elf and one appeared at his elbow a moment later. “The room is lovely,” he began, watching as the little creature’s ears vibrated with joy. “But I’ve not been accustomed to such luxury in my life. I might be more comfortable with a bit less gold leaf and and fewer tapestries.”

“Oh no, Professor Snape, sir! They is being removed right away, sir!”

Snape made an attempt at a sincere smile. It felt odd on his face. He supposed further practice would be required. “Thank you. I don’t think I caught your name,” he prompted.

“Zinny, sir.”

“Thank you, Zinny. You’re a credit to Hogwarts.”

The elf beamed and disappeared with a pop. Severus shook himself. Admittedly, for a first attempt at a more amiable demeanor, it seemed successful. Then again, a solitary House Elf would not perhaps be the best judge of his character. 

Poppy had requested his presence. It would serve as another trial well enough.

 

He supposed it was possible he’d spent more hours of his life in the Hogwarts infirmary than anywhere else in his 38 years of life. Certainly Black and Potter had done their fair share to ensure it, and where they left off, student accidents and years of spy-work took up the task of landing him on his back and suffering the sighs and glares of the much put-upon matron.

“Stick out your tongue, please,” Poppy instructed. Severus did so with the air of the long-suffering. Her wand tip lit and shone in his every orifice he was nearly ready to shuck off the gown and tell her where she could shove her wand next. She instructed him to push and pull against her arms, to attempt to lift them up and down against her resistance. “Good,” she said. She repeated the process with his legs. Severus was well familiar with the neurological exams she preferred to perform after his every run-in with the Cruciatus curse.

“Severus what is the first thing you remember after the battle?”

This was decidedly an unfamiliar turn to his normal routine physical. “Waking up in the infirmary, having a pile of my clothing shoved at me and being ushered out the door.”

Poppy inhaled a sharp breath through her teeth. “Bugger. I thought so.”

Poppy had never in Severus’s memory uttered anything more vulgar than an occasional “sugar” when pressed. Today she’d obliterated that impression not once but twice in the past hour. Severus was moving from concerned to worried.

“What’s wrong with me?”

She pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers. “Do you recall my telling you that the cumulative effect of nerve regenerative potion could result in memory loss, mental regression and, in some cases, a permanent vegetative state?”

Severus felt cold. “What have I forgotten?”

Poppy looked at him. “At least a day’s worth of memories, possibly more. I’ll have to get another Healer in to be sure. But Severus, you understand what this means? I cannot give you another dose of that potion without running the risk of catastrophic mental damage.”

Severus attempted to square his shoulders and stiffen his upper lip. “Fortunately, madam, I’ve retired from being tortured by madmen fortnightly.”

Poppy shook her head. “For your sake, I hope so. But I daresay You-Know-Who wouldn’t be the only one with a grudge, Severus. You must be careful. _Promise me_.”

There was a time he’d have sneered at her concern, brushed off her compassion and relegated it to wherever such softness went when he deemed it Not Of Use. 

Severus took her hand, and tried not to notice the way her eyebrows shot into her hairline. “Thank you, Poppy. For everything. I’ll do my best to stay out of harm’s way. But in the spirit of honesty, I didn’t survive to spend my life in hiding. I have a chance to have a life now. _My_ life on _my_ terms. I lived too long as a spy not to be cautious. But I won’t let it dictate my actions anymore. Do you understand?”

Her lip trembled and her eyes shone before she all but crushed him in an embrace he allowed himself to return, hesitantly. “Oh, get out of my infirmary you impossible man,” she said, removing an invisible piece of lint from his shoulder. “I’ll send for you when the healer arrives.”

“I don’t suppose you could just loan me your memory of what I missed to peruse in the pensive?”

Poppy frowned. “I think in this instance, it would be best if the memory returned naturally. I’m not saying this to be difficult,” she hastily added, sensing his impatience. “But I fear you might find things not as you expect them, and without the context of your own emotional response within which to place the memory, I think it would be a taxing thing for you to reconcile mentally.”

Severus snorted at that. “I suppose I woke up and danced a hula with a bedpan on my head or some such nonsense?”

Poppy smiled. “Something like that.”

Severus left a while later, intending to begin lesson planning and instead turning over possibilities of what he might have done that he couldn’t remember. He doubted it was anything very adventurous considering he’d been bedridden the entire duration. But it was a thought that would plague him until he could remember what exactly made Poppy so sure he would doubt his own senses to see it.

 

The remaining month seemed to rush by as Severus prepared his lesson plans, studied his student rosters, and continued his efforts to adapt himself to his new reality. Several visits to Madam Malkin’s left the woman bemused, frazzled, and determined in turns as she attempted to work with him to find a look that suited him. 

He thought of a little boy, playing “wizard” dressed in his mum’s blouse, so keen was he to appear the part of a powerful magic-user. He supposed he would always favor more traditional robes. He experimented with more modern cuts, trousers, shirts, waistcoats and frock coats in a variety of colors, purchased, discarded, eventually returned to the shop several times. 

“Professor Snape, if I may be so bold,” she said, after his fifth such visit, “You clearly favor darker colors. With your coloring, you’d look frankly odd in chartreuse or lavender.”

He laughed outright in that, imagining himself in one of Lockhart’s getups.

“You prefer a more traditional look. But you’re a young man, so we oughtn’t cover you head to toe in fabric as you’ve done in the past. If you’d like to look a bit more approachable, we can start with a traditional robe in a color you like but belted at the waist beneath an over-robe in a color a shade darker. The over robe should be tailored neither too loose nor too fitted. We’ll forgo the bell sleeves as they’ll only end up in your inkwell. I think a hood as well, and perhaps a bit of embellishment around the edges.”

Madam Malkin sketched as she spoke and Severus had to admire her acuity. She clearly knew her business. He chose several designs and several colors, dark forest greens, deep blues and even a bronze color. She promised she’d send enough sets of clothing to outfit him for two weeks without laundering. He treated himself to two new pairs of boots in brown and black. 

The hairdresser was far less understanding than Madam Malkin.

“Who did this to you.” The man’s tone was unforgiving and full of horror. 

Snape cleared his throat and attempted some measure of dignity. “I did.”

“Hmm.” Came the only reply. The man picked up his scissors and spray bottle.

“I thought perhaps—”

“—No.” The man cut him off abruptly. “No one who does _this_ to their hair gets to have an opinion. You’re going to shut up and let me work so I can fix this nightmare.” 

Duly chastened, Severus shut up.

Three quarters of an hour later, he was considering a visit to the opticians as well. “How in the bloody hell…” he trailed off. He looked...not terrible, he decided. 

The hairdresser was unyielding as he shoved products into Snape’s lap. “Wash it every other day, condition it every day, put a knut size amount of product in it after you shower working from back to front and if you take a pair of scissors to your own hair again I will find you and I will do unspeakable things to your person, do I make myself clear?”

“Crystal,” he replied, still marveling over the shortened length and how large his eyes suddenly appeared.

“Men with cheekbones like yours have no business hiding them under hair like that. I’ll see you back here in two weeks. Don’t fuck it up.”

He could only nod in agreement. He tipped generously. He wasn’t sure if the promises of violence were mere empty threats or not, but the man’s demeanor bore more than a passing resemblance to Molly Weasley at her most terrifying, and he knew better than to chance it.

It was just his own miserable luck that Minerva caught him returning to the castle.

“Do stop cackling, it’s only a haircut,” he said, exasperated.

Minerva wiped the tears from her eyes and grinned broadly. “Oh, Severus, you’re going to have problems with the students this year looking like that.”

He scoffed. “Oh come off it, I’m hardly Lockhart. It’s just a bloody haircut. If it’s going to cause that much of a distraction I’ll refrain from making the same mistake again.”

“Oh now, Severus, don’t be like that. You look wonderful. Ignore me. Ignore everyone. Be happy, you deserve it.”

He did ignore her. The portrait of the lady in the blue gown that wolf-whistled as he walked down the corridor was harder to ignore. And if there was a slight spring to his step as he returned to his quarters, no one was the wiser.

 

September the first dawned cold and clear and Severus felt exhilarated to begin the term. As his colleagues had returned to the castle he’d made an honest effort to extend his hand in friendship to each. Some, such as Filius, Pomona and Horace were quite easily won over. Others were more skeptical of his change of heart. But Poppy was ever his staunch defender in the staff room, unwilling to hear any gossip or aspersions against his character. It was not something he would have asked of her, but he could hardly chastise her for trusting him and giving every appearance of liking him when that was precisely what he hoped to achieve. He asked her if she’d had any success in reaching her Healer colleague for consultation, but she shook her head and replied he was traveling, researching mind-healing techniques somewhere in the Amazon and was quite out of reach. 

But despite that setback, he felt more sure-footed than he’d ever remembered feeling before a new school year. Though it was true many of his colleagues in the staff room were merely cordial, and hardly what he could call friendly, it was a far cry from the thinly veiled disdain he engendered for the majority of his career and quite a ways from the open hostility of last year.

It felt, he supposed, as if he were a part of a team. He found he quite liked it. 

By the start of the welcoming feast, his opinion on the start of term had taken a rather drastic 180 degree turn. 

Potter was up to something and it was putting him off his Yorkshire puddings.

Severus stabbed angrily at his roast in retaliation.

“Something the matter with your roast beef, Severus?” Minerva asked, as if she couldn’t plainly see the cause of his distress sitting at the Gryffindor table giving every indication he was enjoying his meal and the company of his housemates.

“Fine, Minerva,” he bit off. 

It had been the absolute worst start of term in his memory and that included the previous two. For one thing, the first years were all obviously undersized. Potter towered over them on the train platform which wasn’t on at all. He was a short, scrawny thing, and always had been. The fact he turned up at Hogwarts a good deal broader, taller and browner than he had last seen him in the war was completely out of line. No one who fought as he had had any right to look that good. 

Secondly, before he’d even had a moment to process what had been done to the first years to account for their shrinkage, Potter had requested a private word before the sorting. 

For a brief, delighted moment he’d prepared himself to magnanimously accept Potter’s apology and hand in friendship and was halfway to envisioning their future comradery, laughing over pints while a hangdog and soaking wet Lucius Malfoy stared at them hungrily through the window. It was usually raining in this fantasy.

Neither hand nor apology were given. Instead a sloppily wrapped bundle was thrust into his hands. 

“Here, sir. I’ve no justifiable need for this now the war is over. It wouldn’t be fair of me having this now. I trust you to keep it safe.”

And with that, the man turned and rejoined the other students as if Severus were operating a bloody coat check and not a school. 

He dumped it in his empty seat before taking his place at the front of the dais for the sorting. He barely registered the names as he called them out, still fuming over Potter and trying to work out what he was playing at.

“I see Potter gave you his cloak for safekeeping,” Minerva observed carefully. “He entrusted me with his map, as well. I suppose he means to have a normal year of schooling, for once,” she opined. 

Severus grunted into his now decimated boiled potatoes. He didn’t see the look she exchanged with Poppy. If he had, he might have been less taciturn on the subject.

To add to his suspicion, Potter’s performance in his courses proved to be exemplary bordering on prodigious. All his professors noted the change. Horace was especially loquacious on the subject, pointing out his every potion had been brewed perfectly thus far despite the absence of Severus’s own marginalia to spur him along. His work in Defense was possibly groundbreaking and if it didn’t give him a migraine to contemplate, he’d probably urge him to submit his papers for publication. He couldn’t account for the transformation in the slightest. He’d hoped for a lessening of tensions between them. But this was beyond his ken. 

Severus could understand personal growth. He’d made his own conscious changes. But it hadn’t been a fundamental change from one day to the next. Severus did not wake up to an epiphany or radically alter his personality with the force of a revelation from out of the blue. But Potter somehow had and it was going to drive him spare.

In his class, Potter was respectful bordering on reverent. In all fairness, he noted a marked decrease in sass from the majority of Gryffindors, undoubtedly attributed to his role in the war. Potter however seemed to be approaching his classroom as Snape’s very own sergeant. Several times he’d caught onto pranks only after Potter had taken it upon himself to correct his classmate’s misbehavior. 

It was a stunning departure from the open rebellion among many of the same students only one year prior.

“Potter, a word please,” he raised his voice among the din of swiftly departing students.

Potter regarded him with polite curiosity as he approached Snape’s desk. “Yes, Professor?”

“Curious you seem to be showing sudden signs of competence this year.”

The young man smiled ruefully. It shouldn’t have been charming. It was charming. “Amazing how much easier it is to find time to read when your belongings aren’t locked in a cupboard all summer.”

Severus peered down his long nose at Potter. “I see. And the Weasleys? Forbid you from studying as well, did they?”

Potter had the good grace to blush at that. “No, Sir. Though if I’m completely honest I didn’t put in much effort in the past.”

“Oh, you don’t say?” Potter’s color told him he’d finally struck a nerve. For some reason it didn’t give him the same pleasure it once did.

“Learned helplessness. Or that’s what the therapist called it, anyway. Things didn’t go well for me at the Dursley’s if I outperformed my cousin in school. So I didn’t. The habit stuck.”

It sounded like a load of old rubbish to him, but Severus was caught on another point entirely. “You saw a therapist?”

Harry nodded, eyes wide and showing confusion at the turn in conversation. “Yes, Sir. Thought it might be sensible after everything. And I wanted—I _needed_ —to make sure I had my head straight before I came back here. I’d heard of blokes on the telly who’d come home after war who’d crack up and forget where they were, hurting people they cared about, not knowing what they were doing. I didn’t want to risk hurting anyone.”

“No, I suppose you would have had enough of other forces driving your actions for a while,” Severus observed, mainly to himself. 

“Exactly so, Sir.”

Severus dismissed him, with a parting, “Good work today in class, Potter,” turning over Potter’s remarks as he left. If the smile Potter gave him crept its way into his thoughts at all, it was only the novelty of the thing and nothing more.

He was sure of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title taken from the song "I Am the Resurrection" by the Stone Roses.


	4. Wonderful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Anyway, all I’m saying, is I guess I can empathize with him now. Which means I can also see some of the things he didn’t much like about me. And honestly, I don’t much like those things about myself either. But the man I saw in there, the man I never really knew, seemed to value fair play, self-improvement, hard work, and second chances.”
> 
> Hermione looked at him oddly. “Sounds like he would have made a model Hufflepuff.”
> 
> Harry snorted. “Can you imagine?”
> 
> “Yellow? With his coloring? It would never have worked,” she declared, drolly.

Harry fairly ran from the infirmary after Snape lost consciousness and didn’t stop until he reached his flat. 

He sat on new grey carpeting surrounded by stylish new furniture and pictures of his friends and family, smiling and waving at him from his walls.

It was his happily ever after. No Voldemort. No Dursleys. Hermione would be by in a few hours. Ron was moving on with the steady surity of a swiftly moving river, supporting his family, grieving his brother, and yet Kingsley stopped him on the street yesterday to let him know Ron would be joining the next class of Aurors in the autumn. 

He stared into the empty grate of his fireplace and wrapped his arms around his knees. 

“What’s wrong with me?”

“Would you like an itemized list, or was that a rhetorical question?”

The fact he’d been so lost in his thoughts he hadn’t felt nor heard the wards on his apartment admit Hermione was troubling in itself. “How are your parents?” he asked, absently.

“Nibbling eucalyptus leaves and hopping like kangaroos. What happened?”

Harry hadn’t realized he’d begun to rock slightly until Hermione’s arm around his back settled him. “I don’t think I’m the person I thought I was. So much has changed so quickly and I don’t understand so much of it.”

Hermione squeezed him slightly.

“I don’t know what to do anymore. I don’t know what I want anymore. Everything I thought I knew has changed almost overnight. How can I just go on being the hero when I don’t even know who in the bloody hell I’d be fighting for?”

The tears, he supposed, were overdue, and Hermione’s shoulder, though slightly bony, still, from their months of roughing it, smelled pleasantly of washing powder. He let himself break, there, on his hearth, in the arms of the wisest and most constant friend he’d ever known. When his tears hitched to a stop, he saw only compassion in her eyes.

“Stay right there, Harry, I’ll just be a moment.”

Harry thought it unlikely he could move himself bodily from the floor if he tried. When Hermione returned, it was with two mugs of tea and the strings of her extendible handbag clutched between her teeth.

“You have washed that, haven’t you? That bag was dead manky.”

Hermione laughed around the strings as she sank to the floor, handing Harry his cuppa and removing the purse from her teeth. “Yes, I washed it. Here,” she said, proffering a yellow legal pad and biro to Harry. “I’ve never met an existential crisis a good list couldn’t solve.”

Harry wanted to laugh, to roll his eyes, but he felt entirely hollowed out, and quite honestly, he was willing to try anything to feel something other than adrift. “What am I listing?”

“Whatever you need to. Problems. Feelings. The things that are eating at you. Write them down, get them out, and then you can start figuring out how to solve them.”

“What if I can’t solve them? What if it’s me that’s the problem?”

Hermione chewed her lip and Harry knew whatever she was about to say wasn’t something he wanted to hear. “Well actually, I’ve been thinking about seeing a Muggle therapist. Someone I can talk to anonymously and in confidence. Mum and Dad have been before. Mum says sometimes it just helps to get an outside perspective on your troubles. Sometimes they can see things more clearly or offer solutions you never even thought of. I’m scheduled to see someone this week, actually.”

“And you think I can walk into a Muggle therapist’s office and they’re going to understand anything at all about being marked for death at two years old, orphaned, abused, regularly imperiled, lied to for the majority of my life, and then shoved head first into a war against Magical forces of darkness to heroically sacrifice myself for the greater good in the interest of killing a genocidal madman?”

Hermione shrugged eloquently. “Are you more traumatized by the magic or by the lying? Frankly, I don’t really think it matters much that I was tortured by an insane witch when it’s a knife carving the word Mudblood into my arm that sends me into screaming terrors every night.”

Harry felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. “Christ, Hermione, I didn’t mean--”

“--It’s fine. I know you didn’t. I’m just saying, death, war, abuse, lying, these aren’t exactly the sole purview of the Magical world. I don’t know what you could tell someone, and I don’t care, frankly. That’s up to you. But I need it. I need to talk about what I’ve been through, what I’ve seen. Because I have plans to move on with my life, and I think you do too.”

Harry stared at the grate, letting her voice wash over him. “Yeah. You’re right. It’s just a lot.”

Hermione let out a huff of a laugh. “That’s a bloody understatement.”

A moment later the two of them were collapsed in fits of uncontrollable laughter. 

“So I think I know what I want to put on my list,” announced Harry around a mouthful of spagbol. 

It was a testament to their long friendship that Hermione barely even winced. “I’m listening.”

“So, really, a lot of this came about because of Snape. I’m dealing with his memories and the truth of what happened, what Dumbledore put him through, what he put _himself_ through all because he wanted to make things right with my mum.”

Hermione gestured for him to go on.

“I think, well, and tell me if this sounds weird or anything, but I want to be the kind of man that was worth all that. I want to be the kind of man Snape could respect. You don’t understand what it was like in there, Hermione. I mean, I saw so much of him. So much of his life, and almost none of it was good.”

Hermione gave him a deadpan look. “I can’t imagine.”

Harry swatted at her arm halfheartedly. “I’m serious. The Dursley’s were horrible, but they weren’t my parents. I don’t know what I would have done if I couldn’t have told myself at least someone might have loved me if they’d still been alive. Snape didn’t even have that. And when he met my mum, even that wasn’t a patch on having you and Ron. I mean, Ron can be a berk from time to time, but so can I. And even when he ran, he came back. He always comes back.” Harry trailed off in thought. “I don’t know why she didn’t go back.”

Hermione cleared her throat pointedly. “Well there was the whole calling her a mudblood and joining the Death Eaters thing.”

Harry twisted the napkin in his lap. “ I know it’s not exactly something you do to cement the bonds of friendship, and I know I keep comparing him to Ron, which is weird and I’ll probably worry about that later, but let’s say it’s back in third or fourth year when he had such a chip on his shoulder about being poor and he’s fighting with you because he thinks your cat is trying to kill his only pet and he’s just being Ron and stupid and maybe, he let’s the m word fly. What do you do?”

“You really need to talk to a therapist.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I. I’m not your Mum, Harry. I don’t know if I would have made the same choices. I didn’t know Ron before Hogwarts. And he was a prize git most of that year. So I really don’t know. I’d like to say I’d have let him apologize if he was truly sorry. Or maybe I would have cut my losses, but then, your mum didn’t have a Harry either. Eventually we forgave each other because neither of us wanted to give up your friendship.”

“So what you’re saying is, you stayed together for the kids.”

Hermione punched his arm fairly soundly but Harry was laughing too hard to feel it.

“Maybe you just had to be there. But he was absolutely miserable. And it wasn’t like he had anyone else telling him different at the time. His entire house was joined up. I’m not trying to excuse what he said, but he seemed honestly contrite.”

“Then why did he join the Death Eaters?”

Harry stabbed his pasta. “Reckon maybe he felt he was alone and didn’t have many other options? I don’t know. Dudley watched _Boyz n the Hood_ about twenty times one summer and there were more than a few similarities to Snape’s memories in that movie.”

Hermione nodded as if to concede the point. “I suppose American gang culture would be an apt comparison.”

“Anyway, all I’m saying, is I guess I can empathize with him now. Which means I can also see some of the things he didn’t much like about me. And honestly, I don’t much like those things about myself either. But the man I saw in there, the man I never really knew, seemed to value fair play, self-improvement, hard work, and second chances.”

Hermione looked at him oddly. “Sounds like he would have made a model Hufflepuff.”

Harry snorted. “Can you imagine?”

“Yellow? With his coloring? It would never have worked,” she declared, drolly. 

 

Hermione and Harry were curled up on the sofa with a bottle of wine from the off-sale down the street when Ron finally arrived. 

“I was such a...a…”

“Prat?” Ron supplied helpfully, hanging his cloak beside the door. 

Harry pointed to Ron. “Yes! That!” He missed Hermione’s glare at Ron’s amusement as they budged over to make room for him. 

“Seems I’ve got a bit of catching up to do,” Ron observed, pouring himself a glass.

“And I was just trying to explain to Harry, he can hardly be responsible for playing into Snape’s expectations of him when he was being told next to nothing about either of their roles in the war until they were literally dying or planning to die.”

“Yeah, but did I have to be such a git about it? Even you were always going on with your ‘ _Professor_ Snape, Harry.’” Harry’s impression of Hermione landed somewhere between Margaret Thatcher and Julia Child.

After Ron stopped laughing, he took another drink and shrugged eloquently. “He was a git. You were a git. I think if you want to end that cycle it’s going to take more than calling him Professor.”

“Alright, so what would you do, oh fount of wisdom?” Challenged Hermione.

Ron shrugged. “Be less of a git?”

Harry threw a pillow at him, but the question still hung in the air. The trouble was, when Harry, Ron and Hermione spent an evening putting the world to rights, it usually ended up righted in the literal sense at some point in the near future, a fact largely attributed to Hermione’s wit, Harry’s determination, and Ron’s strategic genius.

Two more glasses in, the biro was scribbling furiously across the legal pad. 

They began with Hogwarts. “There isn’t a state school for Magic, is there? I mean, Hogwarts seems very public and posh, but really, they have to take anyone magic in Great Britain, yeah?”

“If they can afford the fees,” Ron supplied, a touch bitterly.

Hermione let that hang. “To the best of my knowledge. You said the Gaunts were likely taught at home—”

“—Yeah but I don’t reckon that was to do with a lack of fees. I think that was down to their unwillingness to mix with anyone other than Purebloods.”

“There’s a fund,” Ron added. “For students who aren’t well-off.”

Harry turned to Ron. “I’m sorry if this makes me sound like a bigger nob than Malfoy, but do you know much about it? Does it cover everything or just part of the fees? I think mine were just taken from my vault so I never even saw how much they were.”

Hermione chewed the end of the pen. “It’s not like Eton or anything. Mum and Dad managed alright, but I think it would have been a stretch if we’d been a larger family or Mum hadn’t been able to work.”

“It covers most of the fees. You’re still on the hook for books, robes and everything else though,” Ron admitted.

Harry shook his head in disbelief. “So Hogwarts is basically a state school being operated like a public school. Is it me, or does that seem extremely odd? No standardized curriculum, no hiring standards, teachers giving out gifts and favors at random, while some have to struggle for everything they get. I mean, not for nothing Ron, you’re an amazing Keeper, but can you imagine if you’d had a better broom? Why are we supplying our own athletic equipment for inter-house competitions?”

Hermione stared at Harry intently and poked at his scar.

“Ow.”

“You look like Harry Potter, but you’re starting to sound a lot like Umbridge.”

Harry drew his wand on her half-heartedly, “You take that back!”

Hermione snorted into her glass. “Or what, you’ll disarm me?” 

Ron broke down into laughter after that and very little else was accomplished that evening.

 

The next morning however, over hangover potions and scrambled eggs, plans were made and meetings arranged. Ron’s suggestion that he seek out Lucius Malfoy resulted in pumpkin juice sprayed halfway across the table.

But oddly enough, Ron was correct, and Harry found his most unexpected ally in the mostly exonerated and selectively repentant figure of Lucius Malfoy. What he now lacked in political cache and influence, he more than made up for in liquid assets and an insider’s understanding of both the political machinations of the Ministry of Magic and the Hogwarts Board of Governors.

And Harry had influence to spare.

“Well, yes, I admit it starts with new brooms,” Harry conceded over a somewhat strained lunch meeting with Draco’s father, “but ultimately, if Hogwarts is to be the only school of Magic in Great Britain, then the government should bear some of the financial burden to eliminate inappropriate funding discrepancies and to provide some basic oversight of the curriculum and qualifications of the staff, not to mention the wellbeing of the student population.”

Harry took a bite of his sandwich, hoping he’d parroted enough of Hermione’s arguments to be coherent as Malfoy seemed to process what he was saying.

“Surely you’re not looking to appoint another High Inquisitor?”

Harry visibly shuddered which drew a smirk from Malfoy. “Absolutely not. But there ought to be some standards, don’t you think? I learned more History of Magic from a bloody copy of _Beedle the Bard_ than in six years of Binn’s lectures on the Goblin Wars. Trelawney is an actual Seer but her class is a complete waste of time. And what of Muggle subjects? Do Wizards honestly leave school without any maths, literature or science? I mean, I understand that much of the need for Muggle technology has been circumvented by magic, but to never read Charles Dickens? Or Shakespeare? Or even watch a Muggle film? Listen to Muggle music? Seems like a waste.”

“There are Muggle Studies courses, you know.”

Harry stabbed a chip on his plate. “Which Muggleborns and Half-Bloods never take because we know how to plug a toaster into a wall and how to take the Tube. It’s as much a waste of time as Divination.”

“Believe it or not, many Pureblood families have an appreciation for the Muggle fine arts.”

Harry resisted rolling his eyes. “Yes but all students would benefit from advanced education in Muggle and magical subjects. Half the reason Hermione excelled at Arithmancy was her love of maths.”

Malfoy nodded his head and took a sip of his wine. “I concede there may be merit to your ideas.”

“And also, I don’t think the Headmasters should be given free reign to do as they please without oversight.”

Malfoy’s eyes widened and he nearly dropped his fork. “Severus and I have been saying that for years.”

“Dumbledore was a great man. But he wasn’t always a good one. And I think the school suffered for it. He always had his eye on the big picture and sometimes I think he forgot he was overseeing children, not pawns in a war.”

“I’m listening.”

“Ultimately, I don’t want vulnerable students coming to Hogwarts wholly unprepared for their education in a way that can be exploited politically, socially, or financially.”

“What do you propose?”

“For starters? Ministry funding of Hogwarts. No more fees. It’s not a public school and it’s rubbish that it’s virtually compulsory to attend and thus can create a financial hardship for families beyond their control. If it’s to be a state school, let it be funded like a state school. There is a Muggle Ministry of Education and I’m quite certain Hogwarts would fall under their jurisdiction, which also prevents the more fractious elements of the Ministry for Magic claiming foul as it’s a relatively impartial source.”

“Unless you’re basically opposed to the involvement of Muggles in any facet of Magical Education.”

“Which given the current political climate I can’t say would be a tremendously popular stance to take, would you?”

Malfoy took a longer sip from his wine glass. “The Board of Governors does have an established fee for students in need.”

Harry did roll his eyes at that. “Yes, and a fabulously funded one it must be to have turned out so many damaged young children in badly patched robes and poorly matched wands.”

Malfoy smirked. “Well we did have an entire contingent of Weasleys to educate.”

Harry did not care for his tone. “Yes. And a certain Dark Lord of your acquaintance and beneficiary of said program who was so badly mistreated as a child he could only be satisfied by the death and subjugation of an entire people group. What a stunning recommendation for the program.”

Malfoy sighed in frustration. “What would you have us do then, hmm? Empty our mutual coffers to eliminate any class discrepancy from Hogwarts whatsoever?

Harry smirked now. “Well maybe not empty them. But let’s get a standardized and updated curriculum written by qualified scholars and professionals. And we can talk about a program to get decent supplies and wands to those who need them. I’m sure a joint philanthropic effort on our parts would inspire a good number of people to contribute.”

“It’s true, the competent professors rarely teach from the texts anymore. I’m sure Severus hasn’t in years.”

Harry snorted. “I know. I’ve seen his margin notes.”

They both laughed at that, and the shared a moment of comradery in that moment seemed to surpass their past animosity enough to embolden Harry to add, “And can we start some sort of bloody Wizarding CPS?”

 

That summer was perhaps the most productive and rewarding in Harry’s memory, with the death of Voldemort slowly becoming a mere footnote in amongst his achievements. With the speed of the well connected, legally astute, and incredibly rich, legislation was proposed, meetings were arranged, funds donated, matched and memorial funds too numerous to count sprung up everywhere.

And Harry saw a therapist. And much as Hermione had assured him, it was an invaluable help in processing not only the war, but the years he spent with the Dursleys, his grief and his deep, unfulfilled longing for family.

When September the first arrived it seemed nearly anticlimactic. Harry had been so embroiled in the reformation and restoration of Hogwarts, returning as a student once again felt rather like an afterthought. 

He’d read every text for his year and several others besides as a member of the committee that worked to standardize and update the curriculum. His new school issued trunk was pointedly outfitted with the standard supplies, now provided free of cost to students, and all to the desired specifications of the professors. 

On the train platform he caught a glimpse of Professor Snape looking much more himself than he had a few short months prior when Harry had been caring for him day and night. Better even. Harry thought he’d never seen the professor look so good. He found himself hopeful that he would take notice that among the children this year there was not a single patched or tatty robe or hand-me-down wand.

Professor Snape seemed perturbed by something else however and Harry determined to steer clear and assist Hagrid and the prefects in shepherding the first years to the boats. Most were staring at him anyway, so it seemed a practical solution to their obvious distraction.

When he finally broke away he found the last carriage waiting for him with Hermione, Luna, Neville and Ginny inside. Professor McGonagall, now Headmistress, stood beside it, prepared to usher him inside.

Having nearly forgotten, he removed the Marauder's Map from his inner cloak pocket and handed it to her. “The incantation is ‘I solemnly swear I am up to no good.’ To end it, it’s ‘mischief managed.’”

McGonagall looked down at the parchment in her hand with bemusement and, he thought, something like a touch of awe. “Not planning any mischief this year, Mr. Potter?”

Harry merely grinned in reply and stepped up into the carriage.

 

A few weeks into term, Harry requested a meeting with Lucius Malfoy, the senior staff, and the Board of Governors. He was nearly stunned when all consented to the meeting, but was too busy in his research and preparation with Hermione to give it much thought. The day of the meeting, he stood before the front doors, waiting to escort Malfoy to the Headmistress’s office and hoping to catch a word with him regarding their strategy prior to the meeting.

While the Wizengamot were coming around to the idea of a Department for the Welfare of Magical Children, agreement on its implementation was sharply divided between those who saw it as an unnecessary interference in the private lives of families and preferred an approach that favored serving those who came forward voluntarily for assistance, and those who supported intervention in cases of reports of abuse or neglect from trustworthy reporters, such as school or medical personnel. Harry was strongly in favor of the second approach for obvious reasons. In addition, there was the question of Muggleborn or Muggle-raised students who may fall through the cracks of the Muggle system as both Harry and Tom Riddle had, and what might be done to prevent such things reoccurring.

As the doors opened to admit Malfoy, Harry saw Professor Snape approach from the side corridor and wondered if he too had come to greet Malfoy.

“Severus! This is a surprise, I hadn’t expected a welcoming committee. How are you, old friend? You look absolutely wonderful, I have to say. And Harry, good to see you again!”

“Likewise, Mr. Malfoy,” Harry responded, and was surprised to discover it was true. 

Professor Snape, if he was in any way pleased to see either of them, made little show of it. “Lucius. Mr. Potter.”

“I was just escorting Mr. Malfoy to the meeting, Professor.”

Again, the professor made no inclination he’d noticed Malfoy at all. “Meeting, Mr. Potter?”

Harry was momentarily confused. “For the Board of Governors and Senior Staff? Forgive me sir, I thought you would have been notified.”

Harry was chilled by the empty smile the professor gave him. “Yes, well I think you’ll find I’m no longer among the Senior Staff, so do enjoy your meeting. I must be going.”

Before Harry could say another word, the professor turned on his heel and returned the direction he’d come. 

“Not Senior Staff? I thought for certain he’d have been made Deputy Head at the very least.”

Malfoy coughed discreetly. “I’m certain after last year it was thought best if he wasn’t in any position carrying more weight than Head of House. Still, that was a rather chillier reception than I’d expected from him. There was a time we were quite close friends. He reached out to me, once, this summer for drinks, but I believe we were preparing a bill at the time. I suppose he must still be rather bitter about the war. It’s equally possible our friendship was merely a means to an end. He was quite a master of deception in the end.”

If Malfoy hadn’t sounded so sincere in his regret Harry might have felt pressed to defend the professor’s reticence. As it was, “Give him time. He may yet come around. It’s only been a few months, though it feels ages ago the war actually ended.”

Malfoy gave Harry a shrewd look. “Perhaps even time enough for him to thaw toward his least favorite pupil. You are championing his pet causes, after all.”

Harry had nothing to say to that at all and quickly ushered them up the stairs in lieu of a response that might have exposed more of himself than he particularly wanted in that moment.

 

The meeting itself was rather brief. Harry proposed that due to the inability of the Wizengamot to come to a consensus over who should head the Department for the Welfare of Magical Children, now that Hogwarts was more or less under the authority of the Ministry, the school itself might be an ideal candidate for such a department, at the very least, for the children of age to attend Hogwarts. Professor McGonagall and Professor Sprout especially seemed particularly interested in the idea of placing orphaned students in the care of the school, and to use the resources of the school infirmary and staff to identify those who might benefit from removal from their home situations. 

“And of those who say this is merely a means to indoctrinate students into a Wizarding society away from their Muggle or Half-Blood families?” Asked one particularly sharp witch among the Governors.

This debate went on for several minutes until a recess was called with a general consensus that a volunteer committee should be formed to oversee the care and welfare of any students remanded to Hogwarts custody and it should be made up of a mix of Muggleborn, Half-Blood and Pureblood staff.

“This is all great,” Harry confirmed. “This should be easy to present to the Wizengamot. Only, we need to plan for a training seminar.” Harry grew uncomfortable with what he knew he was revealing, but pressed on. “Every staff member needs to be trained to recognize signs of abuse and neglect. I’ve spoken with Madam Pomfrey and she’s offered to co-lead the seminar with myself. If all are in agreement, we can plan it for Saturday next.”

McGonagall gave him a look that fairly shone with pride. Malfoy beside him clapped him on the shoulder, breaking the solemn atmosphere that had descended with Harry’s revelation. “I’m sure Miss Granger will be only too happy to help draft the legislation and of course, I’m at your disposal to assist in any way I can.”

The meeting adjourned. Harry politely excused himself and without conscious thought made his way to the sofa before the common room fire. Hermione found him there moments later and wrapped him in a soft blanket before sidling up beside him in quiet comfort, resting her head on his shoulder.

His therapist had told him, warned him, really, that his work might bring up unpleasant memories from time to time. At the time, he’d thought of walking into Hogwarts and having a flashback to the battle, firing spells at House Elves and suits of armor. He’d never considered the quiet, haunted feeling of being back in his cupboard returning in vivid detail as he considered the possibility of dozens upon dozens of other children out there, waiting for a Hagrid to break down their door with a misspelled cake and an offer of hope.

He was grateful for the understanding of his found family. And when he finally emerged from his fugue state hours later, it was to find himself surrounded by the sleeping forms of Hermione, Ginny, and Neville. 

He wasn’t alone. He would never be alone again. Harry wrapped the thick blanket around his sleeping friends, and went up to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title taken from the song "Wonderful" by Everclear.


	5. Holocene

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The annoyance of Lucius and Potter’s continued association lingered like a particularly pernicious festering wound. It bled into his teaching and his curt exchanges with the colleagues with whom he was working to rebuild the threads of a fragile trust once again. With every unnecessarily sharp word from his mouth he silently blamed Potter. Every disappointed pair of eyes he immediately placed squarely on the young man’s unreasonably broad shoulders.
> 
> Severus knew he needed to get a grip, and badly, before he alienated himself out of a job.

The annoyance of Lucius and Potter’s continued association lingered like a particularly pernicious festering wound. It bled into his teaching and his curt exchanges with the colleagues with whom he was working to rebuild the threads of a fragile trust once again. With every unnecessarily sharp word from his mouth he silently blamed Potter. Every disappointed pair of eyes he immediately placed squarely on the young man’s unreasonably broad shoulders.

Severus knew he needed to get a grip, and badly, before he alienated himself out of a job.

The announcement at the weekly staff meeting Friday morning that Potter would be assisting Madam Pomfrey in a mandatory training for all faculty scheduled the following morning was, perhaps, unfortunately timed. “ _Potter_!” He all but spat. “Has it occured to no one that the boy is not actually in the employ of this school, the Ministry or the bloody British Empire? Would you mind elucidating for me precisely _why_ I am expected to attend training with one of my own students in my off hours?”

Minerva looked near to implosion, and only Poppy’s hand on her arm forestalled what he could only envision to be a Gaelic bollocking of epic proportions. “Severus, see me privately after you’ve finished your classes today. I’d like a word. Dismissed.”

Severus huffed in irritation at being called to the Headmistress’s office like a recalcitrant schoolboy and stormed down the spiral stairs toward his offices before anyone else had a chance to get a lick in over his treatment of their favorite pupil.

Classes that day were remarkably quiet. Hardly any points were deducted. It seemed word of his state had reached the students which was a point of shame for a former spy and an even greater indication that he was not entirely in his right mind. Which might have explained how he came to vent his spleen at the young man in question directly.

Eighth year Defense was his last class of the day and his anxiety had begun to ratchet upwards with every passing second bringing him closer to what he was sure would be a forced resignation. When he asked Potter to stay after class, his half-formed thought was to forstall his inevitable sacking more than anything more _therapeutic_ , but when he saw Potter’s hopeful, smiling countenance approach his desk without a single care in his over-inflated head, he realized the last time he’d asked the boy to stay behind it was to praise his work in his class and the idiot actually thought he was about to receive more of the same.

“Do you realize, Potter, that the entire world does not revolve exclusively around you? That there are those of us with lives entirely and happily separate from your own?”

Potter’s obvious confusion enraged him further. “Sir?”

“What I fail to understand is why you felt the need for this victory lap around Hogwarts, to subject us all to yet another year of your insufferable interference and disruption! Did it not occur to you in your incredibly egotistical machinations, that your very presence here is enough to distract and torment those students traumatized by the war?” Snape knew he was pushing the boy too hard and yet couldn’t stop the vitriol spilling from his lips as if he’d been given a Babbling Beverage even as he watched the Potter boy blanch from his words, clutching the edge of his desk hard enough to whiten his knuckles. “You survived the war with nary a scratch to show for it. You have a willing young woman ready to marry and carry for you and yet you spend your hours here pestering staff rather than taking up the Ministry on an opportunity other Wizards would probably kill for. You _won_ , Potter. _The girl, the gold, the glory_ ,” he listed off, disdain dripping from every bitter syllable. “So I ask again, Potter, _why are you here_?”

Potter’s voice broke. “I don’t know how to be normal, alright?” He fairly shouted at Severus. “Is that what you wanted to hear? I’m doing a spectacular impression of an average bloke because it’s kept me alive for the first eleven years of my life, and I see no reason to dispel everyone of the notion now that I’m nearly on the verge of losing the plot completely.” His voice cracked further and Severus saw the faintest sheen of tears in Potter’s eyes. His voice was quiet as he continued. “I’m an extremely lucky bastard who survived on the merits of friends more insightful and talented than I am, many of whom are now dead, and now I have no clue how to live my life when I’m not trying to avoid one bloody disaster or another. I...hoard food and...scan every room for cover...and it’s all I can do not to jump out of my skin every time you slam your bloody classroom door! And _none of it_ is very conducive to starting a career _or_ a family. I’m 19 bloody years old and my only viable skills are disarming dark wizards and withstanding various forms of torture! So _no_ , Professor. I’m not running off to take on more dark wizards and I’m most _certainly_ not running off to marry Ginny Weasley, who, for your information, is an amazing woman who is entirely worthy of all the joy life has to offer, which is why she isn’t remotely stupid enough to settle for my short, mad, speccy arse!

“I’m here to _make_ something of myself! Something that isn’t defined by what’s been done to me that I’ve been lucky enough to live through.” Potter’s voice lowered into a tone of menace he’d rarely heard before and never directed at himself, no matter how they’d managed to offend one another. “So if it’s all the same to you, _Professor_ , I would greatly appreciate it if you would _get the hell off my back_.”

Severus barely registered the slam of his classroom door behind Potter but he knew for certain if Minerva didn’t sack him, he needed to sort this and quickly.

 

“Severus, please take a seat,” Minerva said evenly.

There were no offers of biscuits or even sherbet lemons. He was completely fucked.

“If anyone asked me twenty years ago whether or not Severus Snape enjoyed teaching I likely would have laughed in their face. I’m well aware of the arrangement you and Albus had during the war, but the fact of the matter is, the war is well over and I’d like to know myself, Severus, do you, in fact, enjoy teaching? Because I was rather under the impression you were somewhat at loose ends without a purpose and I, perhaps mistakenly, thought teaching Defense would provide you a bit of...continuity...shall we say, amidst all the changes your life has undergone over the past year. But I will tell you right now, Severus Snape, I am _not_ Albus Dumbledore, there is no war and no Tom Bloody Riddle to justify your obscene treatment of your students and friends, and I _will not tolerate_ your abuse and insubordination any further, _do I make myself clear_?”

Severus swallowed, never feeling more like his teenage self than he did in that moment. He looked down at his hands steepled in his lap, only without the benefit of his ubiquitous curtain of hair, his roiling emotions were all too plain to see. 

“Oh, _Severus_. What am I going to do with you?”

“I’ll tender my resignation in the morning.”

“The hell you will. You’re the best Defense Master this school has ever seen. But you’ve got to pull that stick out your arse and be quick about it. I don’t know what is between you and Potter, and Poppy has forbidden me from prying, but you have _got_ to put an end to this animosity between you.”

“Yes, Headmistress.”

Minerva rolled her eyes and shoved the tin of shortbread on her desk over toward him. “Have a biscuit, Severus.”

Severus took the biscuit.

 

Saturday dawned bright and cold and the hospital wing was fortunately empty of patients when the faculty arrived. Though he’d tried to find Potter to make amends of some sort the night before, the young man was stubbornly refusing to break curfew and he had to satisfy himself with several poorly drafted apologies which all ended up burned before they could ever reach Potter himself. It was humiliating. 

It was no less than he deserved. What in blazes was the matter with him? 

When the faculty were all assembled, Potter and Madam Pomfrey emerged from her office, the young man in question wearing a flannel robe and looking prepared to bolt at any moment. It was then he noticed Potter cutting his eyes toward the far corner of the room where he noted Weasley and Granger in attendance. Weasley had not opted to return for his NEWTs, and Severus began to wonder in earnest what this was about.

“Thank you all for giving up your Saturdays to attend this training,” Poppy began. “The subject matter of a personal nature discussed within this room is not to be spoken of, alluded to, or in any other manner used for any purpose outside the Hospital wing. I trust I need not place a formal geas on any of you to ensure your utmost discretion?”

A general murmur of assent went up from the faculty.

“Very good. Some of you may be familiar with the legislation currently being passed in the Wizengamot remanding certain students formally into the custody of Hogwarts school until they come of age. The requirements for this will be a general consensus between myself, their Head of House, the Headmistress, and a select team of Mediwizards and Witches from St. Mungo’s. In addition, it will be the duty of Hogwarts to register each new witch or wizard to appear in the rolls with the Ministry of Magic for monitoring.”

More mutters from the faculty. Rolanda was the first to speak up. “Poppy what is the purpose of this registry? It sounds rather invasive to the privacy of magical families.”

Poppy frowned and gestured Miss Granger to come forward. “Madam Hooch, I believe I can answer your question. To date, there is no oversight, specifically, of Muggleborn or Muggle-raised witches or wizards prior to their coming to Hogwarts. For Muggles who face a less-than-ideal home life, there are social service agencies who are often called upon by primary school teachers and Muggle doctors to look into the welfare of the children in question. For magical children, however, there are unique issues at play. Some are capable of healing their own injuries with accidental magic, making it difficult for those in the Muggle world to identify signs of ab-abuse.” 

Severus credited her for her ability to speak on the issue with only a slight tremble to her voice. As he observed Potter in his robe, the presence of his friends, and the discussion at hand, the purpose of the training suddenly became all too clear, and if there was any doubts in his mind that he owed the boy his apology, they were quickly reduced to ash.

“And what of non-physical abuse?” Severus asked. “While it’s true that it is easy enough for a skilled Mediwizard to detect signs of former injuries upon a person, there are other ways in which children can be harmed that leave no physical trace upon a person.”

Poppy looked at him with a warm expression, and even Minerva appeared to thaw somewhat. “That would be why I’m here, Professor,” answered Potter. Severus swallowed hard, recalling their Occlumency lessons and the glimpse into the boy’s home life that he knew should have concerned him more deeply at the time.

Potter stepped forward and addressed the faculty. “Many of you already know I was raised by my Muggle aunt and uncle. Fewer of you likely know that I suffered in their care,” he said, eyes firmly on the flagstone floor. “I wanted you all here today because I was not the only student in the history of Hogwarts to suffer abuse that went unnoticed. In my research during the war, I discovered Tom Riddle was placed in an orphanage at birth where he received the minimum of care. Like Tom Riddle, I found my first real home at Hogwarts and I was fortunate to find a family here to show me love and acceptance for the first time in my life. I was lucky. It was equally possible I could have been sorted differently, made few friends, and developed a similar outlook to Tom on the evils of Muggles based on my upbringing.”

Potter addressed this statement to the faculty and he found himself flushing with the knowledge that Potter knew damned well he was describing Severus’s own experiences as well.

Poppy picked up the thread where Harry left off. “We all know Harry to be an exceptionally brave young man. He was offered a position with the Aurors immediately following the war, but declined.”

“Why?” Asked Pomona. “Surely you’d have been a credit to their ranks.”

Harry smiled sadly at her. “Because it’s not enough and never will be if we don’t root out the societal ills that allow wizards like Riddle to flourish in the first place. It’s like having an infestation in your home. If you don’t root out the source and remove the temptation, you have no hope of deterring it by squashing one or two, be they ants, Doxies or dark wizards. There will always be bad people in this world. And there’s nothing any of us can do to prevent that. But for those who lack hope, who face undeserved and unnecessary cruelty, who are forced to do what they must to survive, they need not find their first, best hope in the darkness. We, as a society, can do better. _Must_ do better.”

Severus was disturbed to feel the pressure of tears behind his eyes and cleared his throat, loudly. “And your proposal is?”

Potter smiled sadly at him and removed his robe to rather startled gasps. The boy was naked down to his rather ragged looking y-fronts. “This is not my usual appearance, but I’ve asked Madam Pomfrey to assist me in showing you what I looked like when I first arrived on the Hogwarts Express.”

“Right,” Madam Pomfrey continued, daring anyone to comment on the boys emaciated appearance. “First, you can obviously see the boy is underweight. His ribs are clearly visible, his stomach concave, and his joints appear prominently. What I would also like you to take special notice of, is the brittleness of his fingernails and the fine layer of hair on his extremities.” Several professors fought back their revulsion to step forward and examine Potter. “These are signs of extreme malnutrition and starvation. I have other tests which would have told me much the same, but as entrance physicals are not mandatory, he had time to gain weight enough to prevent any obvious signs of maltreatment before I first saw him. In addition, he was lucky to avoid what is known as refeeding syndrome, wherein a body unused to regular meals is suddenly allowed to eat their fill without supervision. This can lead to an extreme state of shock, illness, and even death. Any student suspected of starvation or extreme malnutrition by his or her head of house should be immediately sent to me for nutrient potions and a strict diet with which they can safely regain a healthy weight.”

“Also,” Poppy continued, “you should be watchful for signs of neglect. There are stark differences between a student who is not well-off, and one who is being deliberately neglected. Mr. Weasley, if you would?”

Ron reluctantly pushed himself off the back wall and made his way to the front. He waved his wand and appeared much as he had when Harry first met him on the train to Hogwarts. “You’ll note the mended and darned patches of his sweater, the careful attention to cleanliness of his clothing and person. While it is obvious that many of his clothes were handed down between his brothers, they have been well cared for, are clean, mended and ironed.”

“Harry, by contrast,” another wand waved and Harry was dressed once more, only this time in tatty, muggle clothing, “is dressed in ill-fitting cast-offs from his much larger cousin. No effort was made to take them in to a smaller size, to ensure they were clean, warm, or well-presented. His trainers were stuffed with newspapers to keep water from seeping through the holes in the bottoms. In contrast, his Muggle family was upper middle class and had no difficulty in providing for their other child. In psychological terms, Harry was what we refer to as a ‘scapegoat’ or ‘whipping-boy’ for the family.” 

“ _The cupboard under the stairs_ ,” Hagrid muttered direly. “How could we not have known?”

“Because Mr. Potter did not _want_ us to know,” answered Snape, succinctly. “No child taken from such a situation wishes to enter Hogwarts on unequal terms with their classmates.”

“But if he was really being so mistreated—” Professor Sinistra protested.

Severus sighed and screwed his courage to the sticking place before walking to the front of the room to join Potter and Madam Pomfrey, much to their obvious surprise. Perhaps even more shocking, a wave of his wand had him in a similar looking robe to the one Potter first emerged in. With little hesitance, he shucked himself down to his own greying y-fronts and turned his back on the faculty. “Some of you may only be familiar with curse scars so please take special note of the marks across my lower back and upper thighs. Those were made with the buckle end of a Muggle belt.” He turned again to show his lower abdomen to the horrified looks of his colleagues. “The star shaped pucker here, was done with a broken bottle meant for my mother’s throat.”

Potter looked at him with an expression approaching awe Severus found difficult to bear. “Not unlike the Weasley’s, my family was poor. However, unlike the Weasley’s, my mother’s magic had long since faded into nothing under the cruel hand of my father, as it often does in those who are deeply depressed and despondent—another sign you would do well to watch for in both incoming first years, and those departing or returning from school holidays. The best she had to offer me was a willing target for his drunken rages and the meager portion of the Prince library she was able to retain when her family disowned her for marrying a Muggle. You will find abused children often mask their abuse to fit in, and often because they have been conditioned to believe the abuse they receive is their own fault. It is _not_.”

“How could Dumbledore let this happen?” Whispered Madam Pince. 

Potter actually snorted. “I loved Dumbledore. But his first priority as Headmaster was always the war with Voldemort, with student wellbeing typically a distant second.”

After several more questions, the meeting was adjourned with parchment lists of signs to watch for given to each faculty member. At the end, both he and Potter were fully dressed, though he felt perhaps more naked than he’d ever recalled feeling in his entire life. He’d never spoken of his family in such a way to anyone ever. And yet, something in Potter’s candor and the suspicion in Aurora’s voice had spurred him to spill his secrets to the entire staff.

“Thank you, Professor. That couldn’t have been easy for you.”

Severus restrained his impulse to be sarcastic. “No. It was not.”

Potter scuffed his boot, transfigured back from the muggle trainer, against the floor. “I don’t typically like to remember this stuff. I’m usually a bit shaky after. Ron and Hermione are taking me back to my apartment for a bit.” He bit his lip, obviously debating the wisdom of continuing this line of discussion. “I don’t want to presume, but if you have somewhere to go that feels safe, someone to be with, you might find it helps.”

Snape nodded and watched as Weasley and Granger enfolded Potter between them and left the room. 

 

Sometime later, he was ensconced in the Headmistress’s office with Minerva and Poppy beside him on the settee, all three with a tumbler of whiskey a piece. They’d spent the evening drinking, swearing and glaring at Dumbledore’s portrait in turns. 

Apropo of nothing, Poppy told him, “It was Potter.”

“What’s that?” he asked, only slightly muzzy.

“Your missing memories. It’s been long enough I think it’s safe to say they’re not coming back. I’ll put my memory in the Pensieve for you.”

With a lazy flick of her wand, Minerva floated the bowl of the Pensieve over to their spot before the fire. When Severus gave her a droll look she responded, “After everything you’ve put me through these past months, you’re daft if you think I’m not seeing whatever has put you in such a state.”

He shrugged, and the three of them entered the memory of the Hospital Wing following the battle.

He watched Potter speaking to his unconscious form, caring for his injuries, tending the other wounded in the hospital when he wasn’t assisting the rebuilding crews in restoring Hogwarts to its former glory. He heard everything the boy told him, his hopes, his fears, his plans changed and changed again and again. Finally he saw himself wake and startle Potter half out of his wits. He saw the tenderness in his treatment of his nerve damage, his easy humor, and watched as Potter wept over him, his pain and suffering before leaving the school as if Slytherin’s basilisk were on his heels.

They emerged from the memory and Minerva immediately refilled Severus’s glass. He gratefully took a long drink. 

“It was shortly after that he began to work with Malfoy and Granger to reform our education system.” Minerva commented.

Severus was completely unsure how to process this information. He stared into the fire, oblivious to the tear tracks on his face and asked, “Why?”

Poppy placed a hand on his arm. “You would know better than anyone. The memories you gave him, whatever they were, had a profound effect on Harry. He knew the effects of the potion we used better than anyone, both as a patient and having administered it himself. To see you in such a state, and be confronted with its relative inefficacy, he knew the meaning of it. I only confirmed what he already knew,” she said.

Severus closed his eyes. “That noble little idiot.”

Minerva swatted him gently. “You inspired him, Severus, and it’d be a damned lie if I said it hasn’t been good for the school and our world as a whole. Is it so surprising he cared for you?”

Severus thought of Lily’s boundless empathy and shook his head. “It shouldn’t be, but it is. After everything I did…”

Minerva and Poppy groaned simultaneously. “Give over, Severus. Nobody did more for the war effort than you and Potter and everyone damn well knows it whether they like to acknowledge it or not. You did what you had to do. Let it go. Everyone else has.”

“Well, not _everyone else_ ,” Poppy amended. “I still think you need to be careful about vigilantes.”

“Yes, yes, _constant vigilance_ ,” he agreed, irritably.

“So the question is,” said Minerva, swirling her whiskey around her glass. “What do you intend to do about it?”

Severus continued to stare into the fire. _Nothing_ was on the tip of his tongue. “I’ve tried very hard this year,” he began, unsure how to finish his sentence. “To learn how to live as a person who doesn’t have to worry about every step, every word, every decision I make meaning life or death for someone. And I thought that meant acting selfishly for a time, and for a time, perhaps, it was the right thing to do. But you were also right,” he told Minerva, “I did need a purpose. And you gave me one inviting me back to teach. But it has been...difficult...not to fall into old habits. I’ve tried to be more open with my colleagues—”

“—Friends, Severus. We’re friends.”

“My friends, then. But I find all the insecurities that bound me up as a teenager never really left me. Deep in my heart, I find myself still waiting for the other shoe to drop, for someone to pop out and tell me this has all been a grand prank and wasn’t I the fool for falling for it.”

Minerva boldly placed an arm around his bony shoulders and gave him a squeeze while aiming her seventeenth glare of the evening at Dumbledore’s portrait. “If I’d had half an inkling what those miscreant boys were doing to you,” she muttered under her breath. 

Severus chuckled despite himself. “I’d have certainly become a well-adjusted and popular individual fighting openly for the Order and everything would have been sunshine and puppies and we’d all live happily ever after. I don’t think so, Minerva. I think I still would have been a swot with poor hygiene and a shit home life getting by on the coattails of my only friend until I found myself a job in a mediocre potions laboratory somewhere and the Dark Lord would probably have rule over most of Great Britain right now.”

“That’s the spirit,” encouraged Poppy.

“Do you know,” Severus confided, “I’d thought of making amends with Potter. I’d imagined perhaps we could even find our way to some sort of friendship,” he added, a bit wistfully.

Both women stared at him. “Well I think it’s fairly clear he’d be more than amenable to that!” Poppy exclaimed with obvious exasperation.

“And you could start by not antagonizing the boy at every opportunity,” Minerva added, drolly.

Severus put his head in his hands. “It’s not that simple. Yes, I know I need to reign in the antagonism. But you saw him today. The courage it took to do what he did, to lay bare his private life for the benefit of complete strangers—”

“I seem to recall you jumped up there fairly quickly to do the same.”

“It was the least he deserved from me, after how I treated him! If I could spare him half a moment’s humiliation then perhaps it’s amended 1/100th of the humiliation I’ve willfully caused him!”

Behind his back, Poppy and Minerva shared a meaningful look. “So you’re not going to do a damned thing,” Minerva confirmed.

Severus was baffled. “Have you listened to a single thing I’ve said all night? Of course I’m going to do something! Potter is...a far better man than I ever credited. And the very least I can do is support him in this endeavor to the full extent of my abilities. And perhaps someday, I’ll feel confident enough to offer my friendship. But at this precise moment I think it would be a reach to ask for so much as his forgiveness.”

“He’s offered it freely, Severus,” Poppy reminded him.

He shook his head. Potter was a trusting fool. “Nevertheless, this is something I must earn.”

Minerva sighed deeply into her glass before raising it in a toast. “Well then, to earning the respect we already have from those that already respect us whether we like it or not.”

They all drank to that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title taken from "Holocene," by Bon Iver.


	6. Lucky Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Two thoughts occurred to Harry simultaneously. First, that he was going to kill Severus Snape, personally, for divulging his memories from their disastrous foray into occlumency to a gaggle of kids, and secondly, that he had obviously done so in a misguided attempt to provide them some kind of comfort, which was as admirable as it was bang out of line."

It felt incredibly perverse to look forward to end of term exams. Harry didn’t dare meet Hermione’s eye over the breakfast table for fear he’d see the same anticipation in mirror reflection. 

“You’re excited, aren’t you,” she accused, baldly, over her tea.

Harry flipped open his transfiguration notes and reviewed the first few pages in stony silence.

“Admit it.”

Harry sighed. “Fine,” he admitted with a tiny smile. “I’ve worked hard this term. I can not only read my own handwriting, but my notes actually make coherent sense without having copied them directly from yours. It’s nice for a change to know I can do something besides defense and flying.”

Hermione smiled and grasped his hand over the table. “And you’re going to be brilliant, because you are, you know. How many wizards do you know could have scraped your O.W.L. scores while spending most of the year possessed by Voldemort?” A few students down the row shuddered and Hermione lowered her tone slightly. “You’re clever, Harry. You can do this.”

“Not like you,” he clarified.

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Wait and see. I’ll bet you five galleons you better me in at least two subjects.”

Harry openly stared. “You’re _not_ serious.”

“Deadly. You have natural talent in potions from both sides of your family,” She began ticking points off on her fingers, “You excel when you’re not openly antagonizing or being antagonized by the teacher. Look how well you did with Snape’s instructions when he wasn’t in the room! And,” she added, with flourish, “since Snape was allowed to revise the curriculum, you’re still top of the class, even with all of us working from the same material.”

“That can’t be right. You and Malfoy—”

“—Still don’t have your instincts. Does it shock you so much you have talents outside Quidditch?”

Harry knew intellectually that his father’s family had founded Sleekeazy's and that a Potter relative had invented Pepper-Up, but all Snape’s memories of his father never really painted him as much of an intellectual. “Do you think it skipped a generation?”

Hermione laughed. “Well, your mum seemed keen enough. Maybe that made up for it.”

Their conversation was interrupted abruptly when several older students accidentally jostled a first year Gryffindor into Harry’s back, causing him to spill his tea in his lap. Harry only just managed to avoid a detention-worthy string of invective. The first year apologized profusely as Harry cast drying and cooling charms down at his lap.

“I’m so, so sorry Mr. Potter!”

Hermione’s tea nearly ejected from her nose. “Harry, look,” she said. Five or six students had now gathered behind him.

Harry turned around. “Just Harry is fine. I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve met,” he added, opting to address the shaken first year before the others. 

“I’m Laura. Laura Smith,” she said. “Um, I just wanted to say thank you.”

Harry felt his smile waver a bit as it usually did when someone tried to thank him for killing Voldemort. Before he could reply though, one of the older students, a third-year Ravenclaw he thought, spoke first. “I’m Peter. Peter Reid. Professor Snape said you were the one we ought to thank. Said you wanted to make sure everyone was safe at home.”

“I’m sorry,” said Laura. “He calls you Mr. Potter, and I didn’t know what else to call you.”

Harry was quite turned around. “He calls me—do you mean—” 

“We’re the new wards of Hogwarts, Potter,” clarified a Slytherin girl in the back. “I’m Siobhan Walsh, by the way.”

Harry didn’t know what to say. “All of you?” The group nodded. He noted the others in his year rising to head to exams. “Look, I’d really love to speak with you all, get to know you a bit better. I have exams in about fifteen minutes, but why don’t you come find me at lunch and we can talk further. Would that be all right?”

The eldest, a Hufflepuff boy in the back laughed, irony heavy in his voice. “Gosh, I don’t know, do you think we can make time in our schedule for Harry Potter?”

Harry colored slightly but he could see from the smiles on their faces no offense was meant. “All right then, you lot. I’ll be at the end of the Gryffindor Table nearest the Head Table, provided I survive Transfiguration.”

That got the laugh he’d hoped for and as he and Hermione exited the hall for their Transfiguration Exams, he found he couldn’t help looking forward to lunch. 

 

For once, Harry felt confident in his Transfiguration performance. “Is this what it’s like for you all the time?” He teased Hermione.

Hermione giggled. “Somewhat. All that work you do, and and when you’ve finished and you know you’ve done well, well, it’s all a bit of a rush, isn’t it?”

Harry puzzled that he never worked it out before. “You just described winning a Quidditch match.”

Hermione shrugged, still smiling. “A victory is a victory, I suppose.”

Harry grinned back. “Careful, Hermione, you may make a scholar of me yet.”

With mock gravity she pressed her hand to her chest and fell against the wall, her other arm outstretched. “Fetch Madam Pomfrey, I think I’m having a heart attack!”

Her theatrics were abruptly ended by the appearance of Professor Snape in the corridor. “A rather anticlimactic end so soon after war’s end, don’t you think?”

Hermione stared blankly at their professor and Harry answered for her. “I’m afraid it’s my fault as usual, Professor. I threatened to spend the rest of my life on academic pursuits, so you see, her reaction was only natural.”

“Ah, I see. Well in that case, perhaps you both ought to plan a visit to the matron, Potter, as clearly you’re suffering the effects of severe head injury.”

Harry seemed to surprise them both by laughing, but Snape didn’t appear offended and Hermione had thawed into a much more relaxed stance. “I’ll do that, Sir.”

“See that you do. Good day, Potter, Miss Granger.”

As they continued on to lunch, Hermione hit his arm when Harry refused to meet her eyes. “What was that?”

“What was what?” He hedged.

“ _That_. Back there. Banter. With Professor _Snape_. What was _that_?”

Harry shrugged, and Hermione frowned and rucked her bookbag higher on her shoulder. “He made a joke. I laughed.”

They said little else before reaching the Great Hall, but Harry didn’t much like the speculative look in Hermione’s eye. 

Between the exam and his surprise encounter with Snape, Harry had nearly forgotten the group of students awaiting his arrival. Laura, the first-year Gryffindor was the first to bounce up to him, the others close behind.

“Is it true you slept in a cupboard under the stairs?”

“I heard your family used to let dogs chase you up trees,” said Siobhan.

“Did your cousin hit you a lot? My da used to belt me when he drank,” said a young Slytherin boy, a first year from the looks of him.

Two thoughts occurred to Harry simultaneously. First, that he was going to kill Severus Snape, personally, for divulging his memories from their disastrous foray into occlumency to a gaggle of kids, and secondly, that he had obviously done so in a misguided attempt to provide them some kind of comfort, which was as admirable as it was bang out of line. 

“What about the time your aunt hit you with the frying pan?” Asked Peter.

Dean Thomas’s pumpkin juice sprayed half the table.

Harry took a deep, calming breath and tried to salvage the situation as best he could with all of Gryffindor now listening intently to their conversation. “First, she didn’t actually make contact, I was small and quick and her aim wasn’t good enough. Secondly, if you’d like to know more about the subject of my childhood, I’m happy to answer your questions, but maybe somewhere a little more private than the Great Hall?”

Looking around at the shocked faces of all of Gryffindor within earshot, the students suddenly seemed aware of the effect of their enthusiastically morbid interrogation. Their faces fell and Laura began fidgeting with the hem of her jumper. 

“Really, guys, it’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong. Everyone here, well, most of them, know I had a shit family. And I’m glad you felt comfortable coming to me. Are you also talking to your Heads about this stuff?”

They all looked at each other sheepishly. “It was my idea after meeting with Professor Snape,” confessed Siobhan. “We can discuss things amongst ourselves all right, but he seemed uncomfortable with the subject.” Perhaps seeing Harry’s disapproval on his face, she hurriedly continued, “He tried, really he did. But it seemed painful.”

Harry understood. “I suppose it was easier for him to relate my experiences.”

“Seemed like, yeah.”

Harry sighed feelingly. “I’ll send you all a message though your Heads when I’ve got approval for a place to meet. But hey,” he encouraged, “coming to me was brave. I don’t think I could have done it. You’ve got more courage than most and never let anyone tell you differently. I’ll see you all in a couple of days.”

Back in the common room, Hermione and Harry stared into the fire, deep in thought.

“What do you figure, ‘Mione. Teaspoon? Tablespoon?”

Hermione laughed, darkly. “I’d rate Snape at a solid teaspoon and a half. He’s trying, at least.”

“Reckon that’s emotional growth for him.” 

Hermione seemed worried. “Are you very angry with him?”

Harry shook his head. He thought maybe he should be but he couldn’t find the same wellspring of anger that always seemed reserved for Snape. “I think his heart was in the right place.”

 

The next morning Harry kissed Hermione’s cheek and straightened her scarf before seeing her out the castle doors. 

“You’re sure about staying this Christmas? You know you’re welcome at the Burrow.”

“I know. I’m sure. Go on.”

Hermione smiled. “We’ll be here for Boxing Day, don’t forget!”

Harry solemnly put hand to heart. “I won’t.”

Hermione’s laugh was somehow still girlish as she ran down the steps toward the train platform. Harry smiled to himself recalling Ron’s letter declaring his intent to propose at Christmas. His heart swelled with love for his friends even as he felt a pang of something that whispered to him in solitary moments that they were moving on without him.

Not that he had many of those these days. Between studying for NEWTS with Hermione, Ginny and Luna and talking with the students in the school’s custody, a now twice weekly occurrence, he didn’t have much time for self-pity let alone honest reflection. 

Harry wouldn’t regret staying, however. The castle was magical all the time, of course, but devoid of most of its students, the school felt filled to the brim with it in every silent corridor where he could hear the echo of his footsteps on the flagstones and the usually silent passing of the elves and spirits that still animated and served the castle, or stop to see the snow falling under a steel gray sky through the leaded glass windows. Harry loved Christmas at Hogwarts, though it was only as he sat in the quiet, empty classroom with the “support group,” as they had taken to calling themselves, he realized this would be his first without Dumbledore. 

“‘Course it’ll be good to have a feast at Christmas! Never had funds for much before,” commented Aaron Hughes, the Hufflepuff Harry learned was in his fifth year.

“Wonder what pudding will be?” asked Christopher Kelly, the small first year Slytherin.

“Snape said—”

“Professor Snape,” Harry corrected automatically.

“Professor Snape said Christmas is special an’ we all get to choose,” Answered Siobhan.

Harry looked up from the fire he’d been mindlessly poking, thinking on his past Christmases. “We used to do silly magical crackers. Huge hats and such.”

“Oh, aye, Professor Snape said we’d ‘ave those again this year,” said Aaron.

Harry looked at the boy with surprise. 

“O’course we couldn’t last year, what with the Carrows bein’ gits an all, but the Professor reckons they’ll have a regular knees-up this year to make up for it.”

“He does, does he,” muttered Harry.

“Well, yeah. Told us last week when he took us all into Hogsmeade for shopping.”

“Even me!” said little Laura. “It was amazing! And he bought us all butterbeers and gave us a galleon each for presents!”

Harry felt as if the room had somehow slipped sideways.

“He talks about you a lot,” mentioned Siobhan, apropo of nothing.

Harry looked to the others for confirmation.

“Told us about your first Christmas here. Said sometimes students get presents from teachers,” added Christopher.

Harry’s eyes widened. “Well, in my case it was my first Christmas receiving anything in memory.”

“He said that too,” added Peter.

Harry huffed. “Why are we meeting again?”

Laura sat beside him. “So you can tell us about Snape. He tells us all about you.”

Harry shook his head. He knew enough to know sharing details of Professor Snape’s personal life wouldn’t please him at all. “If he hasn’t told you himself, it’s not for you to know. He’s a private man.”

“Then how do you know so bloody much about him?” Aaron was stroppy for a Hufflepuff.

Harry frowned. “That’s a long story, but suffice it to say we fought a war together and our circumstances forced us into situations where we both learned more about the other than we’d have preferred. That being said, I will tell you he is the bravest man I’ve ever known.”

“How come? Didn’t you kill You-Know-Who?” Aaron challenged.

“His name was Tom Riddle, actually, and there’s more to bravery than fighting. You all know that better than anyone, I should think.”

They finally seemed to reflect on that and Harry took the opportunity to escape. 

 

He’d not considered purchasing presents for his professors at all, but then, he supposed, it might be acceptable now, given how much he’d received from them over the years. Snape especially, he thought, with whom he’d managed to develop more of a kinship than any other teacher of his acquaintance, wanted or not. There was an intimacy to sharing your mind with someone and Harry reckoned that might rate someone a Christmas gift. 

As he marched off to Hogsmeade he tried to think of something appropriate. Books were well out as he couldn’t think of anyone apart from Hermione who needed reading material less, and besides which, he very much doubted there would be anything dark or esoteric enough in the few booksellers in Hogsmeade that the professor wouldn’t already own it. 

By dusk he’d wandered every street and had gifts for Professors McGonagall, Slughorn, and Hagrid, but absolutely nothing for Snape. He was beginning to despair of ever finding anything suitable when he happened upon a simple leather smith's shop. In the window was a small satchel designed to be worn on a belt, tooled with runes for protection and a decorative border of fern, ivy, juniper, bay laurel, and nettle. 

“Charmed to protect the contents from breakage. Can add an extension charm for a modest fee,” said the proprietor. 

While the idea of an extension charm appealed, he thought something more undetectable (though arguably less legal) would be more to Snape’s liking. “I’ll take it.”

He sent it off to Hermione with his request immediately after returning to the school. 

“Where have you been all afternoon?” asked Professor Snape at dinner as Harry passed the dish of peas to Laura. 

“Oh, finishing up some last minute shopping in the village.”

She giggled and he winked at her. He’d also purchased things for the children while he’d been out. Nothing so grand as a new broom or invisibility cloak, but there were distinct benefits to a silent partnership with the Weasleys.

“Indeed. I was beginning to wonder if we’d have to send a search party.”

Harry furrowed his brow. “I’m sorry, Professor. Did you wish to see me about something?”

Snape shook his head minutely and cleared his throat. “Not as such, Potter.”

Harry thought nothing more of it until Christmas morning. There were the usual gifts at the bottom of his four-poster, a sweater from Molly, sweets from Ron, broom conditioning kit from Hermione, oddly enough a few muggle books on the occult which seemed to have come from Dudley with a note asking for clarification if any of the stuff contained within was real. That was bizarre enough, in and of itself, without the addition of an extremely large box wrapped in plain brown paper beneath the others. Looking for a note, he saw a folded piece of parchment atop the wrapping.

> You may find these useful to your studies in the coming term. I trust you will not cast any unfamiliar spells without preliminary consultation. 
> 
> Happy Christmas,  
>  _HBP_

“Who the bloody hell is HBP—oh, hang on,” he trailed off, opening the package to reveal a battered school trunk filled will books. He picked up a worn-looking third year charms text and recognized instantly the familiar, untidy scrawl of the Half Blood Prince. But there was more. In equally small lettering he discovered another vaguely familiar and distinctly feminine script that could only have been his Mum’s, if the conversational tone of their notes were any indication. It seemed at one time the both of them were equally interested in spellcraft. 

He was nearly late for Christmas lunch as he poured over the books, laughing at what he now recognized as Snape’s sardonic humor, marveling over his illumination of every subject he studied, and amidst it all, the spells of his own creation in the margins. Some had been crossed out for their ineffectiveness, but others were deemed successful and annotated as such. To have managed such a feat as a young student, Harry could only imagine the sort of genius the boy possessed and not for the first time he considered how shabby it was for his professor to have been pressed into service by the war at a time when he could have been revolutionizing the practice of magic. 

He’d barely time enough for a quick shower and to throw on his newest Weasley jumper (green with a gold H) before racing to the Great Hall, when he remembered his gifts would have been delivered that morning as well. He was grateful beyond telling he’d had the foresight to purchase something for the professor after receiving such a thoughtful and personal gift. 

As it happened, the only seat available was between Snape and Trelawney. Harry risked it and sat down. “Happy Christmas Professor Snape, Professor Trelawney,” he acknowledged.

“Happy Christmas,” Snape returned as if the words were a foreign tongue he’d only begun to study.

As everyone tucked in, he remarked under his breath, “Those books...they’re remarkable. Thank you.”

He received a nod in reply before Snape cleared his throat and added, “As was your gift, Mr. Potter. I imagine I shall make good use of it.”

Harry tried not to smile too broadly. “I noticed you never wore the belt that most potioneers use—I reckon the benches must hit you about waist height and you’d be shattering vials all day long while brewing. This one came charmed to cushion the contents and prevent breakage, and I thought you might prefer something a bit more discreet.”

The corner of the professor’s mouth lifted in apparent amusement. “Yes, a rather versatile design. And the additional charm work?”

Harry blushed and stared intently at his plate. “It came in handy during our extended camping holiday last year. It also has the benefit of not being a lady’s handbag, which I thought you might appreciate.”

Snape actually laughed. Everyone stared at the pair of them but Harry studiously ignored them. With a smile Professor McGonagall pulled a cracker with Madam Pomfrey. Harry was delighted to see the tradition of ridiculous headwear had continued as the professor gamely donned the giant lion head obviously inspired by Luna’s own creation. Snape reached for his own and offered the other end to a startled Harry.

“Better not be another bloody vulture,” he muttered direly and this time Harry drew looks as he laughed. With a pop the cracker exploded in a shower of glitter and a papal mitre sprung forth. “How droll,” Snape remarked, still putting on the headdress to the amusement of staff and students alike. 

“All right, my turn,” said Harry, and as he and Snape pulled open his own cracker, a pointed wizard’s hat, purple with gold stars and spangles landed on his plate. It looked like something Dumbledore would have worn with great pleasure, and with a wistful smile he tugged it on his head. “How do I look?” he asked.

“Appropriately ridiculous.”

“Excellent.”

There were oohs and ahs as everyone’s favorite puddings were finally served, treacle tart for Harry and what looked like banoffee pie for Professor Snape. At last Professor McGonagall stood and raised her glass, encouraging others to do the like. 

“A very happy Christmas to you all. To absent friends.”

“To absent friends,” they chorused. 

A while later, embroiled in a heated Quidditch debate with Madam Hooch and Professor McGonagall, Harry didn’t see the others leave, as such, thought he noted that Professor Snape excused himself shortly after pudding.

It was on his way back to the dormitory that he saw them. All of the students in the “support group” down in the snowy courtyard and Snape, holding his own in a pitched battle of five on one. He watched through the window for a time, marveling at the sight of his professor, looking so very young himself, as he sent volleys of snow hurling toward the students with obvious enjoyment. _He really cares for these kids_ , Harry thought, and a moment later he was rushing out the castle doors, casting warming charms as he went. 

“Harry!” Shouted Laura. “Come on! It’s us against the professor!”

Harry smirked at them before tromping over to where Snape was barricaded behind a substantial pile of snow. “Actually, I thought I’d even the odds a little. Five against one seems hardly sporting.”

Snape looked at him with an unreadable expression before breaking into a broad grin that was as exhilarating as it was terrifying to see. 

The fight began.

Magic was against the rules, but nevertheless they acquitted themselves well, taking only occasional hits as they systematically took turns forming the snowballs and handing them off to be thrown with deadly accuracy. Somewhere amidst the shouts and squeals as snow found it’s way beneath collars and into socks, Harry found himself staring at the professor as he joyfully played in the snow.

The thought, when it came, was calm with certainty and immediately filled Harry with dread. 

_I love him_. 

Any further consideration of the matter was lost as he was immediately buried under two feet of snow and five aggrieved students shoveling snow down his trousers.

Snape and Harry carefully applied drying and warming charms to each student before setting them up in the kitchens with a mug of hot chocolate each and instructions to return to their dormitories when they were finished.

“That was unbelievably fun, Professor,” said Harry, as he found himself walking the Snape to his door. It felt oddly like a date, though he’d had so little experience in that department he doubted very much if the sentiment was anything more than one-sided.

Snape smiled, seeming pleased with himself. “Yes, it was rather. I think they enjoyed themselves.”

“They did. What you’ve done for them has been remarkable, Professor. Thank you. I admit I was worried about how they’d manage here on their own. I’m glad they have someone like you to look after them.”

Snape shrugged off the compliment. “Don’t flatter yourself, Potter. My reasons for looking after them are my own, and they’re certainly less bother than you and your friends were.”

Harry colored and smiled sadly. “All the same, it means a great deal to me. You’re a good man.” He turned to go.

“Potter, wait,” said Snape. Harry stopped and turned back. “I don’t know why you’ve taken it upon yourself to champion this cause when there are so many other worthy uses of your time, but for what it’s worth, you have my respect and my admiration.”

Harry was lost. “Thank you, Sir. Likewise. Happy Christmas.”

“Happy Christmas, Harry.”

It was only after he returned to his common room that he registered Snape’s use of his first name.

 

The next morning he bolted his breakfast in a nearly empty hall and ran to meet Ron and Hermione at the gates, eager to hear their news.

He wasn’t disappointed.

“Harry!” Hermione all but screamed, throwing herself into his arms. Ron beamed behind her, his pride and love obvious on his face. Hermione drew back and looked at him with dawning suspicion. “You _knew_!”

Harry shrugged and looked at Ron. “He had to tell someone, Hermione.”

She happily took Ron’s hand and he saw the lovely ring she wore now glinting in the winter sunlight. “All right then, let’s see it,” he teased.

She brought up her hand and Harry pretended to inspect the the ruby for flaws. When she finally swatted him he laughed. “It’s perfect. You’re perfect together. Congratulations.”

“Thanks, mate,” said Ron and Harry clapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s get inside, yeah? Bloody cold this far north.”

“Ron, you lived here for six years.”

“Still.”

After a detour to the kitchens for refreshments, they settled themselves in front of the common room fire like old times. Ron and Hermione recounted his proposal. “We’re thinking of marrying this summer,” said Hermione. “I’m likely going to begin a ministry internship in the fall and I’d like to be settled before then.”

“You’ll stand for us, won’t you?”

Harry grinned. “Of course. I’d be honored.”

“We were thinking George as well.”

They chatted on about the wedding preparations for a bit before Harry began to drift and spent more time poking the fire than listening to what seemed to be an ongoing debate over wedding venues.

“Mate, everything all right?” Asked Ron.

“Who me? Fine.”

“Yeah, pull the other one, it’s got bells on. Last time I saw that look on your face Ginny was snogging Dean in that corner.”

“Ron—” pleaded Hermione.

“What? I was only saying—oh.”

“What?” asked Harry shortly. “I’m fine. I’m not...jealous or whatever it is you’re thinking.”

Ron and Hermione exchanged a look that he was not at all comfortable seeing. It was far too knowing. “We weren’t thinking that at all,” said Hermione.

“Because I’m not. I love you both and I couldn’t be happier for you.”

“We know, mate,” said Ron. “How was Christmas?” He asked in an even tone that Harry suspected they taught at the Auror academy.

Harry felt as if he’d been made and knew somehow they already _knew_. “It was all right, I suppose.”

“Just all right?” Hermione prodded.

Harry sighed. It was hopeless keeping anything from them. “Snape gave me his entire annotated collection of school books for Christmas. You already know what I got him. We pulled crackers. We laughed. We had a snowball fight with the new wards of Hogwarts and, oh, yeah, I’m in love with Professor Snape.”

Ron choked on his cider and Hermione slapped his back a few times. 

“How long have you known?” He asked, without looking up. He could feel them exchange another one of those infuriating looks.

“Since Summer, I reckon,” said Ron. 

“Same,” said Hermione. “But I had my suspicions sixth year.”

That got Harry’s attention. “Sixth year?”

She only shrugged. “You slept with his potions textbook and giggled to yourself over his commentary like Ginny when she had a crush on Michael Corner.”

Harry thought back to that year and buried his hands in his hair, pulling on it in frustration. “Fuck, you’re probably right.”

“Chin up, mate. It could be a lot worse.”

Harry let out a bark of laughter. “Oh yeah? How?”

“Well, he’s alive for one. You’re of age and leaving school this year. And Hermione reckons he’s trying to be less of a git, so, y’know,” added Ron.

“No, I _don’t_ know.” Harry was getting irritable. “Just because he’s not actively trying to have me expelled doesn’t mean I have a chance in hell. He was in love with my _mother_ , Ron. Let’s just let that sink in for a minute, shall we? The very best things I have going for me are that he’s not dead and I’m of age? He’s also straight and twenty years my senior, and leaving aside the whole _in love with my mother_ thing, oh yeah, I also have literally _nothing_ to offer him. He’s brilliant and funny and brave and—”

“—And so are you,” chorused Ron and Hermione.

Harry groaned. “Not like him. Why are you encouraging this anyway? This probably isn’t healthy or normal.”

“You’re not those things either,” said Ron, obviously without thinking. 

Harry was too stunned to say anything but Hermione hit Ron soundly with a pillow and the mood was lifted. Harry laughed. “Fine. Whatever.”

It wasn’t fine and it’s certainly wasn’t whatever, but he could tell he wasn’t going to get his friends to see sense any time soon, so his next best hope was to make them forget the whole thing entirely.

“So what colors were you thinking for the wedding, again?”

Deep down, Harry knew he probably deserved the barrage of pillows he received for that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title taken from the song "Lucky Man" by the Verve.


End file.
